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THINGS WISE AND 
OTHERWISE 



BY 



CHARLES W. BIDDLE, D.D. 



COMPILED BY 

MRS. MARY E. BROWN 

* 

WITH INTRODUCTION BY 

JAMES M. PULLMAN, D.D. 



BOSTON 

EUGENE F. ENDICOTT 

19OI 



93006 J5/9US 



Library of Cona«*e«s 
Two Cost's RECF'VIFD 

DEC 24 1900 

f\ Copyright wtry 

SECOND COPY 

Delivered to 

ORDER DIVISION 

DEC 28 1900 






No 



COPYRIGHT, 1900, 

By UNIVERSALIST PUBLISHING HOUSE. 



F. H. Gilson Company, 

Printers and Bookbinders, 

Boston, U. S. A. 



PEEFAOE. 



The Chapters comprised in this volume are 
selected from articles originally published in 
" The Universalist Leader," and have been gath- 
ered together — a labor of love — with the con- 
viction that they will be appreciated and treas- 
ured not only by the author's family, but by 
his many friends everywhere. It has been 
truly said that they do not embody his best 
work ; but that does not need the art of print- 
ing for its preservation. Dr. Biddle's best 
work was the giving of himself in loyal and 
faithful service to his fellow-men, and this will 
ever be enshrined in the hearts of his friends 

— a precious memory. 

M. E. B. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction vii 

I. Methuselah 1 

II. A Prize in Every Package 9 

III. "As Dull as a Sermon" 18 

IV. The Guest Chamber 30 

V. A Tie Vote 38 

VI. The Chautauquan Salute 44 

VII. A Sweet Revenge 51 

VIII. The Gospel and the Next Man ... 59 

IX. Wayside Sowing and Reaping .... 67 

X. Ministers and Not Ministers .... 77 

XI. "An' the Villain, He Got Shot" . . 87 

XII. The New Religion 94 

XIII. "The Best Man" 104 

XIV. Genuine Universalist Profanity at . . 

Last 112 

"Tipping Rocks" 116 

"Immortality by Proxy" 123 

The Month of Fools ....... 129 

Lying as a Fine Art 139 

Great Minds in the Same Channel . . 148 

A Ministerial Aftermath 157 

v 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

XXI. Rover and I — My Summer Dog . . . 166 

XXII. Gospel "Globe-Trotters" .... 172 

XXIII. The Crack of the Sportsman .... 180 

XXIV. Nature in Miniature 190 

XXV. A Rainy-Day Exchange 195 

XXVI. "Standing On and Getting In On " . 202 

XXVII. Summer Theology 208 

XXVIII. The Ubiquitous Woman ...... 215 

XXIX. The Birthplace of Horace Greeley . 222 

XXX. Boston in the Early Forties . . . 231 

XXXI. The Divine Art of Cooking .... 241 

XXXII. A Vacation Pew that Talks Back . 248 

XXXIII. Signs and Sayings 257 

XXXIV. "The Devil's Den" 268 

XXXV. The Old "Ambassador" Office in 

New York 276 

XXXVI. Light on the Way 279 



USTTEODUOTIOlSr. 



1 willingly comply with the request for an 
introductory word for this book. I am glad 
that the publishers bring it out so promptly, 
while the air still echoes with the many voices 
of love and praise that Dr. Biddle's departure 
has evoked. There are many who will want 
the book as a memento of a revered and be- 
loved teacher and friend; and many others, I 
believe, who will value it for its utterances. 
For although Dr. Biddle's best work was not 
done with a pen, yet he had a marked faculty 
for " seeing things," and for translating common 
scenes and incidents into their spiritual and 
ethical equivalents, while bright anecdotes, 
quaint fancies, and genial humor give vivacity 
and interest to his writings. 

Dr. Biddle was a man of the people ; he sat 
in their hearts, and knew and shared their lives, 
and brought insight and sympathy and sense 
and tact and faith to bear upon their problems. 
He never forgot those to whom he had once 
ministered. Once their pastor, always their 
vii 



v iii INTRODUCTION. 

pastor. When he could not reach them in 
person he wrote to them ; and I think there 
must be now in the prized possession of his 
former parishioners enough of his loving letters 
to fill another volume like this — letters sym- 
pathetic with their joys as well as with their 
sorrows. And although I suspect he would 
forbid it, yet I could almost wish that these 
letters might be collected and printed, — they 
would be such a revelation of the bright mind 
and golden heart of the man. 

Many of these love-messages came back to 
him during his last illness. " The Universalist 
Leader" of June 23, 1900, contains what was 
really his last message from his sick-room to 
his friends. He heads it " Light on the Way," 
and in it he speaks gratefully of " the letters 
with affectionate remembrances of other days 
when trials were reversed, as if one were meeting 
himself on a return journey" 

Whoever shall read Dr. Biddle's writings will 
find therein no pessimism, neither any slack- 
fibered and foolish optimism ; but he will find a 
stalwart faith in the final moral harmony of 
all souls with God, — a faith resting on his 
belief in an adequate God, who is able to con- 
duct His world to the goal He desires, without 
the intervention of an eternal catastrophe. 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

And to him that God is no theological abstrac- 
tion, but the actual, living God of the souls of 
men, warm, vital, loving, accessible, and self- 
revealing, with whom the believer may daily 
walk, and upon whose justice and love he may 
forever rely. Dr. Biddle's Universalism was 
no mere barren prediction of what the final 
upshot of things must be, — no sterile dogma 
empty of all spiritual and ethical potency, — 
but it was a belief in the capacity of every 
man, with God's help, to reach the highest goal. 
He did not foreshorten the long perspective of 
processes through which that goal is to be 
reached, nor minimize man's part in the work. 
He saw that if Universalism be true, every soul 
of man must become right and good, and that 
it must follow, as the night the day, that every 
man's self-deceptions must be cleared up, all 
his mistakes rectified, all his sins repented of, 
paid for, and forever abandoned. It is for this 
arduous task that the help of the Christ is 
needed. And this help is offered to all men, 
out of a wide-open hand ; and from these indi- 
cations of the purpose and methods of the 
Divine love, nothing less can be prophesied 
than the final overcoming of all evil and incom- 
pleteness, and a brilliant and happy future for 
all humanity. The splendor of this faith ener- 



X INTRODUCTION. 

gized our beloved friend throughout his long 
career; it made him the friend and helper of 
all who would be helped ; it bore him bravely 
over the personal losses and sorrows that come 
to every man, and it carried him through the 
last crisis of mortality with perfect sweetness 
and unshaken tranquillity. 

It is fitting that some brief record should 
stand upon this page of a life so full of useful- 
ness and honor. 

Charles Wesley Biddle was a Mary- 
lander, born in Chesapeake City, December 3, 
1832. It was not so easy to get an education 
then as it is now ; but he took what the public 
schools could give him, and supplemented that 
by a special course of study in the old and 
classical academy of Wilmington, Del. There 
were no Universalist Theological Schools in 
the world at that time, except that Dr. Thomas 
J. Sawyer had, at Clinton, N.Y., a class of 
young men fitting for the ministry. But even 
this was not accessible to our young aspirant ; 
and he completed his preparation under the 
stimulating companionship and sensible direc- 
tion of the Rev. James Gallager, at Easton, 
Penn. He was ordained in 1855, and took up 
his work at Southold, Long Island. 

Visiting that place more than twenty years 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

after he had left it, I found many anecdotes 
and cherished memories of the raw, green boy 
in his first parish, with his serious face and 
quick-flashing wit, his intense earnestness and 
high ideas of pastoral duty, his honesty and 
straight-forwardness, and his uncompromising 
Universalism, which troubled not a little the 
conservative waters of that quiet old town. 
From there he went to Stafford, Conn., and 
exercised his building-up power to the great 
advantage of the society. Then he was called 
to Newark, N. J., where, owing to the imper- 
fect union of two societies, the situation was 
delicate and difficult. Here his unfailing tact, 
his energy, ability, and self-devotion contrib- 
uted, as I believe, the chief element to the sub- 
sequent growth and prosperity of that strong 
parish. From Newark to Lynn, in J. 86 2. His 
call to Lynn was practically unanimous, but 
before he accepted it he learned that one promi- 
nent man had not voted for him. Straightway 
Mr. Biddle called upon that man, and asked him 
what it was that he did not like ; winning, by 
that frank step, a warm friend and stanch sup- 
porter. In Lynn, during seventeen years of 
the full vigor and maturity of his many-sided 
nature, with unflagging zeal, industry, tact, 
patience, and spiritual power, and with a devo- 



xii INTRODUCTION. 

tion that knew no reserve, he wrought the great 
work which is known and justly praised through- 
out our whole church. With characteristic 
modesty, Dr. Biddle has many times been heard 
to attribute the remarkable growth of this parish 
to the exceptionally capable management of its 
laity, not seeming to realize how far it was his 
own high personal qualities which drew such 
able and loyal cooperation to his side. 

From Lynn to Cambridge, where for fifteen 
years he made the beneficent influence of his 
Christian faith and character strongly felt 
throughout the whole city. 

Leaving Cambridge, and after a few months' 
work at Spencer, Mass., he undertook the care 
of the new Brookline parish. In this arduous 
service he ended his days, dying — in the har- 
ness, as he desired to do — on the fourth day 
of August, 1900, after a devoted and fruitful 
ministry of forty-five years. 

Forty-five years ! Let any younger minister 
of lesser service prolong in imagination his 
present experiences through four and a half 
decades, and he, at least, will realize what 
honor is deserved by the man who, during this 
long period, has given his whole life and strength 
to the service of his Master and his fellow-men, 
bearing the burden of the world's welfare always 
on his loyal breast. 



INTRODUCTION. xiii 

Such men are often troubled at the seeming 
futility of their special work. One remedy for 
that despondency is to look over the whole 
field. Go down to the sea-shore and watch the 
climbing tide : — 

"For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, 
Seem here no painful inch to gain, 
Far back, through creeks and inlets making, 
Comes silent, flooding in, the main ! " 

No statement of Dr. Biddle's work could be 
adequate that did not take account of the fact 
that all his life long he was a strenuous servant 
of public interests outside his parishes, answer- 
ing numberless calls both for speech and organ- 
izing service in the promotion of good causes 
and good citizenship. And the positions of 
honor and responsibility which he has filled tell 
the story of his value and faithfulness to the 
church at large. He possessed political genius 
of a high order, discerning intuitively the tem- 
per of the people, and knowing instinctively 
where the biggest fact lay; so that as a diploma- 
tist and pacificator he rendered much valuable 
service. 

As he was an indefatigable worker, so was he 
a diligent student. He had the divine hunger 
for knowledge, and he retrieved the much-re- 
gretted deficiencies of his early education by an 



XIV INTRODUCTION. 

eagerness of study which often robbed him of 
his hours of rest and recreation. His intellec- 
tual activity increased with his years, and he was 
constantly enriching his mind through new and 
varied lines of reading. 

For all Dr. Biddle's strong social qualities, 
his power of adapting himself to all companies, 
his broad sympathies, ready humor, and spar- 
kling wit, he never lost the quiet dignity which 
belongs to his profession. He never forgot, 
and no man in the gayest company that sur- 
rounded him ever forgot, that he was a minister 
of the Gospel, — a man with a divine message 
to men. And one reason why his presence was 
so eagerly desired in times of calamity and sor- 
row was that he carried that same quiet dignity 
and gentle authority into the scene of distress. 
He was never effusive ; but his grave, thought- 
ful manner, his low, earnest tones, going right 
to the heart of the trouble, made men feel that 
his sympathy was real and solid, and so his 
mere presence gave strength, and his comfort- 
ing word was with power. 

One loves to recall his habitual aspect as he 
moved about among his fellow-men. He was 
to all appearance as reserved and imperturbable 
as the Sphinx. The keen dark eyes that turned 
to meet your challenge gave out no self-revela- 



INTRODUCTION. XV 

tion from their somber depths. The steady 
composure of the thoughtful face offered little 
hint of whatever thought or feeling might be 
working within. He looked like a purposeful 
man, intent, serious, resolved, but not sunny 
and not joyous. He himself has humorously 
told us — in his " Recollections of the Old 
* Ambassador ' Office in New York " — when 
and where he tried " to look his pleasantest," 
and how he signally failed and never tried it 
again ! 

But underneath that mask of poise and re- 
serve what a large and loving nature dwelt, 
what geniality and bright fancy and electric 
wit, what tenderness and constancy, what keen 
and kindly wisdom, what invulnerable truth 
and honesty, what manly and virile faith in 
God and man ! 

JAMES M. PULLMAN. 
Lynn, Massachusetts, 
November, 1900. 



THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 



METHUSELAH. 

Passing from the old year into the new 
must have lost somewhat of its novelty to a life 
like that of Methuselah's, counting nine hun- 
dred and sixty-nine of them. The old patriarch, 
according to the early annals, drew to the close 
of a millennium, as our modern time period 
draws to the close of a century. 

It must have become monotonous to hear for 
a thousand years the annual salutation, "A 
Happy New Year." And if in his long drawn 
out pilgrimage there was anything answering 
to our Christmas shopping, what a terror it 
must have been lest he run into duplicate pres- 
ents. It is to be hoped that Mrs. Methuselah 
— especially if there were more than one of 
her — conveniently left him behind in her an- 
nual round, for it has been said that the cheap- 
est-looking thing to be seen about a Christmas 



2 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

bargain counter is a husband waiting for his 
wife. It is a re-enactment of patience on a 
tombstone. Without going into the higher 
criticism, ransacking the Elohistic and Jehovis- 
tic documents, and the mistakes of Moses, 
touching the family records of Methuselah, we 
may for our purpose venture to presume that he 
had, at least proportionally, crossed the dead 
line of fifty, and reached the point where age is 
supposed to know that it knows nothing. 

To all cavilers and quibblers who raise an 
issue as to the years before the flood, we may 
return the answer of the Methodist minister 
who was asked by the village quidnunc how 
old the devil was. Said he, " Keep your own 
family record ; keep your own family record. " 
No doubt Methuselah was old enough to be put 
on the retired list. If the years of Methuselah, 
however, should be contracted to those of 
Thomas Parr, commonly known as Old Parr, 
who lived from 1483 to 1635, was in a love 
intrigue at 105, and married the second time at 
120, he is justly entitled to the distinction of the 
Grand Old Man, whatever we may think of his 
possible sentimental episodes. Unfortunately, 
however, for the fame of the old antediluvian, 
we have a method of " expansion " nowadays, 
which can be applied to time as well as space, 



METHUSELAH. 3 

and may justly claim that a life of fourscore, 
like Gladstone's, Bismarck's, Gov. Boutwell's, 
or Senator Morrill's, may be practically longer 
than that of the old patriarch, no matter by 
what standard it is measured. And it is inter- 
esting to note that the men of 1898 — Dewey, 
Sampson and Schley, Miles, Merritt, Wheeler 
and Lawton — who did more in a twelvemonth 
to change the destiny of nations than Methuse- 
lah did in the longest recorded human life, are 
all more than sixty years old. 

Take, for example, the nineteenth century, 
fast drawing to a close, and so far as we have 
historic data for comparing it with the thou- 
sand years of Methuselah, the man of to-day is 
far older in experience, observation and prog- 
ress, than the man before the flood, even if 
upon his shoulders rested ten centuries, on the 
principle that the least in the kingdom of 
heaven was greater than John the Baptist. 
Not one of us who has attained middle life, but 
has really lived longer than Methuselah. 

To be sure, we cannot tell what civilization 
reigned at that early period ; what " lost arts," 
to use the title of Wendell Phillips' famous 
lecture, may have found no historic records ; 
what inventions may have flourished and passed 
away ; what libraries burnt in clay or otherwise 



4 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

indefinitely preserved, may have ministered to 
learning ; what hints of progress and refinement 
may be wrapped np in the passing mention of 
Enoch, the father of Methuselah, who " builded 
a city ; " of Jabal the tentmaker and ranchman ; 
of Tubal Cain, an artificer in brass and iron; 
and Jubal, the father of all such as handle the 
harp and organ. Undoubtedly Methuselah 
rubbed his wrinkled palms with glee as he 
dilated concerning the age of progress in art, 
invention, agriculture, in which he was per- 
mitted to live, and very likely he had some 
dreams of imperialism and manifest destiny. 
Who knows, but in the ecstasy of original 
spread-eagleism, he exclaimed, "No pent-up 
Orient contracts our powers, the whole bound- 
less universe is ours," and set the limits of his 
country as did an American orator quoted the 
other day by John Fiske — bounded on the 
north by the aurora borealis, on the south by 
the precession of the equinoxes, on the east by 
the primeval chaos, and on the west by the day 
of judgment. 

But whatever the ancient expansionist may 
have felt, the weary old world has been borne 
farther and farther along, as Bryant says, on 
" the flood of years." It is a great way from 
Methuselah to McKinley, and we cannot doubt 



METHUSELAH. 5 

that a century in modern times is longer, 
counted by the rapidity of its movements, its 
broad sweep of interests, its vital questions 
concerning the progress of man in knowledge, 
government, unity and religion, than any ten 
centuries of the past, whether spanned by one 
life or a score. A thousand years are as one 
day with God, and the declaration may be re- 
versed, and one day be as a thousand years. 
We hear it said in this spirit that fifty years of 
Europe are worth a cycle of Cathay, but even 
Cathay, the old name for China, crystallized and 
fossilized, for many cycles, has been experien- 
cing of late a rude awakening, and is getting a 
breath of a broader and freer period. 

We may see that a thousand years like those 
of old Methuselah did not advance the ideas 
and methods, as has a single decade of modern 
life. China is feeling the touch of broader 
human interests, the agitation of world prob- 
lems, the reciprocity of wide relationships, that 
could not have come to her in thousands of 
years of stagnation and exclusiveness. The 
emancipation of Chinese women is one marked 
feature of the nineteenth century impulse in the 
celestial empire. " The Feminine Magazine," 
a new weekly, entirely edited by Chinese ladies, 
has just been issued, showing that the springs 



6 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

of progress are coming up from the domestic 
life of the people. The life of a nation may 
not be long, measured by the time gauge of 
Methuselah, but measured by great, rapid move- 
ments affecting the progress of the world, it 
may be even much longer. The question once 
went the rounds whether married men or single 
men live the longer. And the answer given 
was married men. It was not really longer, but 
it seemed longer. Such a year as 1898, with 
its great transformations and possibilities, seems 
longer than many years of even-going events, 
although the years of quiet are secretly work- 
ing all along towards the sudden consummation. 

A recognition of this fact leads historians to- 
day to dwell less upon courts, cabinets, and 
armies, and more upon laws, customs, ideas, 
social conditions, that working in hidden ways 
during the life of a Methuselah, disclose them- 
selves suddenly in great crises that make points 
of new departure for freedom and faith. 

The year now about closing, seems to bear 
upon its face the promise and potency of these 
far-reaching results. Compared with ancient 
times, when old-world forms of life, govern- 
ment, and custom, moved with the slow pace of 
the Antediluvian's reputed years, the kaleido- 
scopic whirl of events in this year of our Lord 



METHUSELAH. 7 

revolves to the magic words, " Presto, change.' 1 
Nations are born in a day. Slaves rise up men. 
The new constantly transcends the old. The 
area of freedom and a sense of humanity are 
marvelously extended. New political and re- 
ligious ideas leap to the front. The Methuse- 
lahs of old systems, wrongs and barbarities, are 
remanded to the rear, and the bells of a dying 
year ring out a thousand years of wrong, and 
ring in a thousand years of right. 

The progress and comfort in the present 
century, of which the old patriarch never 
dreamed, — running from a locomotive to a 
lucifer match, from a sewing-machine to an 
electric button, through the whole range of 
nineteenth century marvels, that have brought 
the ends of the world together, and consoli- 
dated human interests, preparing the way for 
final righteousness and peace, — would make 
volumes that, to use the hyperbole of St. John, 
the world itself would not contain. Compared 
with the life, variety, rush, and push of the 
year closing, how tame must have been the suc- 
cession of the patriarch's thousand years. They 
were like the lady who gave her maid orders 
to put her monogram on her handkerchiefs. 
She worked one with the monogram, and all 
the others with the word " Ditto." But let us 



8 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

bear in mind, as we cross the threshold of the 
year, that varied and wide-reaching events 
should broaden a sense of responsibility for 
varied and wide-reaching services to mankind. 
If faithful to our larger trust, we shall live 
longer than Methuselah, in the influences that 
shall go broadening down the generations from 
precedent to precedent. He lives most, says 
Philip James Bailey, who thinks most, lives the 
noblest, does the best. Life is a great spirit 
and a busy heart. 



A PRIZE IN EVERY PACKAGE. 



II. 

A PRIZE IN EVERY PACKAGE. 

Sensationalism is not confined, it would 
seem, to a certain class of papers, but pervades 
more or less, religion, business, politics, amuse- 
ments and the professions. It is both a theory 
and a condition of the times. It is more and 
more difficult to get either thoughts or things 
accepted on their merits. They must be tricked 
out with adventitious adornments or hitched on 
to objects and interests foreign to themselves. 
We deck the lily and gild fine gold, or more 
likely pass pinchbeck for the genuine article. 

The canvasser insinuates his soap and station- 
ery, his pound of tea, or his photographs upon 
our attention, with a side show for an attendant. 
The dealer attracts us to his household varieties, 
the publisher to his paper, the merchant to his 
Monday goods, by holding out special baits for 
needy, curious or speculative victims, aside 
from the intrinsic value of the articles. The 
fancy is awakened by the exceptional and arbi- 
trary. Wherever this is found, or under what- 



10 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

ever guise it presents itself, it is the common- 
place method expressed in the phrase — a prize 
in every package. It makes an appeal to 
cupidity or some other inferior motive rather 
than trusting to the legitimate results of toil 
and traffic. 

In whatever sphere the principle is operated, 
whether sacred or secular, in military or civic 
life, it excites a feverish desire to obtain what 
is extraneous to moral duty and disinterested 
service, — to which we should successfully 
appeal, — and substitutes a selfish scramble for 
what is incidental to the main purpose. The 
prize is more commanding than the package. 
The question, " What shall I get ? " or will it 
benefit in the way of a side issue, crowds out 
the nobler considerations of moral obligation 
and unselfish action. It is not a valid principle 
in morals or merchandise, piety or patriotism. 
The mind comes to be morbid in artificial ex- 
pectancy, and loses a genuine interest in worthy 
things for their own sakes. 

There never was a time when the principle 
— a prize in every package — so influenced 
traffic, religion, politics, entertainments, child- 
hood, as at the present day. Things are not 
taken upon their value, but upon their accom- 
paniments. What shall I get with it, not what 



A PRIZE IN EVERY PACKAGE. 11 

shall I get in it, is the too commanding ques- 
tion. The old-time religion had the same influ- 
ence through its promise of an external harp 
and crown hereafter, for service and self-denial 
here. Heaven was then the prize in the pack- 
age of life. That form of religious commercial- 
ism has largely vanished, but we now want a 
nimbler penny and quicker returns in the trans- 
actions of the present mundane sphere. We 
are so looking for the prize in the package of 
this world that inferior incentives come to 
exclude attention to high ideals. It is the old 
question, What shall we have therefor? 

A sea captain said that he had three nationali- 
ties represented in his crew, and by asking each 
the same question, the answer would betray 
the native peculiarity. " What will you take," 
he asked the Englishman, " to go to the mast- 
head ? " " Five pounds," said he, with John 
Bull positiveness. "What will you take, Pat," 
addressing the Irish sailor, " to go to the mast- 
head ? " " Faith," said he, glancing upward, " I 
think I'd take a cowld ! " the characteristic 
Hibernian wit. And now to the American, 
" What will you take, Jonathan ? " and the 
quick response came, "What will you give 
me?" — the Yankee thrift and speculation. 

That question, " What will you give me, 



12 THINGS WISE AXD OTHERWISE. 

what goes with this article or this act ? " is too 
often the mental attitude in modern life. We 
are looking after the prize in the package. We 
have a good deal of low commercialism in our 
present rendering of life and its opportunities. 
When the sable prisoner was asked his age, he 
answered, " What do you want to know my age 
for, Jedge ? you don't want to give me no birf- 
day present." He probably found that the 
judge had no such generous prize for his birth- 
day package ; but how ready we are to obtain 
what is not intrinsically involved in the events, 
duties and relations of life. The prize in the 
package blinds us to the natural and logical 
results of opportunity and service. 

I confess to no little sympathy with the 
heroes of the war in the congressional pulling 
and hauling, about who shall have the prize of 
honorable mention, promotion, or increased 
compensation. It is undoubtedly proper to 
make recognition of heroic services. The re- 
public must not be ungrateful for the fidelity of 
its defenders. But the whole batch of decora- 
tions, advancements, compensations, which has 
been precipitated upon the country at once, and 
the'clamor of the advocates of the different 
heroes, the claims and counter-claims, the 
jealousies, the anxieties as to the prizes in the 



A PRIZE IN EVERY PACKAGE. 13 

military packages, are humiliating when we 
consider the seriousness of the conflict, and the 
claims of the nation upon those whom she 
freely educated, and later compensated for 
soldierly sacrifices and services. Justice, of 
course, must be done, and differences of opinion 
which have filled the air as to relative merits, be 
considered, but the true prizes for these brave 
and gallant commanders, after all, are not in 
the question of one or two points of promotion, 
but in the unselfish service they rendered for 
country and mankind. But this particular prize 
in the military package may be too invisible 
and indefinite to suit the ordinary practical 
mind. We trust it is not a new application of 
the old saying, " To the victors belong the 
spoils." When the dealer in flags was asked 
for a reduction in the price, he exclaimed, with 
patriotic fervor, "What! lower Old Glory? 
Never ! " Let us hope that the aftermath of 
the war, the investigations and contentions over 
the prizes, may not result in lowering Old Glory 
a point or two in the estimation of the world. 
We may at least echo the words of Kipling, — 

" Take up the White Man's Burden ! 
Have done with childish days — 
The lightly proffered laurel, 
The easy, ungrudged praise : 



14 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

Comes now to search your manhood 
Through all the thankless years, 

Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom, 
The judgment of your peers." 

But of all prizes in the national packages, 
the one most questionable is the distribution of 
prize money to naval heroes who captured the 
enemy's vessels. I am not criticising the men 
of the navy, who share in the benefits of the 
prizes. It is the prevailing system, and it is too 
much to expect that the proffered results will 
be declined. The captured vessels should 
wholly belong to the government. Their par- 
tial distribution to officers and men as compen- 
sation or perquisite, is not to the credit of the 
country, may appeal to unworthy motives, be a 
temptation to substitute a selfish for a patriotic 
consideration, to inject a personal for a public 
element in the naval service, and marks a linger- 
ing trace of old-time privateering. The money 
prize in that package comes too high. If we 
must capture the enemy's merchantmen, let it 
be lifted above all selfish interests, to the posi- 
tion of the public necessities. Increase pay and 
pensions if need be, but make the service of 
our sailors wholly unselfish and patriotic. We 
do not expect the soldier to share in the towns 
and territories that he captures, and forbid all 



A PRIZE IN EVERY PACKAGE. 15 

private looting. He is the agent of the power 
that he represents. Nor should prize money be 
found in the naval packages of the republic. 

And the prize package is no less objection- 
able in religion. We do not, it is true, offer 
chromos for marriages, as was once alleged of a 
clergyman. But we try to embellish the gospel 
with worldly devices, and put the seductive 
prize in the sacred package to stimulate an un- 
natural curiosity. We present prizes for 
attendance at Sunday-school, and for good 
lessons. A boy was given a blue ticket with a 
motto, — probably, " Wisdom is the principal 
thing, therefore get wisdom," — for committing 
verses in the Bible; when he had earned twelve 
blue tickets he exchanged them for a red ticket, 
with another appropriate motto, — probably, 
" What thou doest do heartily as unto the Lord, 
and not unto men," — and for a dozen red 
tickets he was presented with a volume, — the 
character of which was often another prize — a 
surprise. 

The best method of taking selfishness out of 
such inducements that I recall, is, when the 
scholar earns the book, which is formally pre- 
sented to him, bears his name, the date, and why 
given, and after he has had the honor of reading 
it first, — provided he reads it at all, — it is placed 



16 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

in the Sunday-school library, and is ever after- 
ward a memorial of his fidelity, and at the same 
time is devoted to the common good. There is 
an element of a Christian prize in that package. 

I recognize the possible benefits of the prize 
system, and how hard it is to draw the line, but 
especially in our religion, we ought to appeal to 
the worth of character and services in them- 
selves, and, as far as may be, leave the extra- 
neous prize out of the package. If we keep on 
offering prizes in the packages of religion, we 
shall have at last little service for the church that 
is not for revenue only. Already the children, 
for example, when enlisted to sell tickets for en- 
tertainments, must be incited by the scriptural 
and sabbatical rule of one ticket for every seven 
sold. If they refused the seven, there would be 
justification. The elders shirk their duties, and 
slaughter the innocents. 

This prize package principle, I notice, is just 
now run by a prominent denominational journal. 
It offers prizes for the " Best Answers " to prac- 
tical and religious questions. Three of these 
questions have brought returns, and they make 
suggestive and profitable reading. The last one, 
the editor evidently thought, ventured just a 
little upon sacred ground. The prize of five 
dollars, or three dollars and the Century Gallery 



A PRIZE IN EVERY PACKAGE. 17 

of Eminent Portraits, — for laying before the 
world the secret processes of personal spiritual 
life, and the searchings of the umpires for the 
good and bad points in the answers, — must 
have raised a question other than the one under 
consideration. The result was interesting and 
helpful, but I could but ask whether the subject 
would not have received as profitable answers 
without a prize in the package ; thus avoiding 
the risk of stimulating pride on the one hand 
and exciting jealousy on the other ; for the con- 
testants, no doubt, had different opinions as to 
the merits of the answers submitted. I am not, 
however, in the critical, rather in the question- 
ing, mood; but note the fact, that in religion, 
as in business, prizes are found to-day in a good 
many packages. 



18 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 



III. 



You are cautioned against connecting too 
closely the subject and signature. However 
applicable, they do not constitute a personal 
confession. I recall that Rowland Hill came 
to chapel in a drenching rain, and exclaiming, 
" What shall I do ? " was told, " Hurry right into 
the pulpit, you are always dry enough there ! " 

The expression "as dull as a sermon" would 
involve all ministers in the same condemnation. 
But evidently it is too sweeping. Was it born 
of the interminable discourses of the reformation 
and Puritanic periods ? I am loath, however, to 
shift the imputation from our own shoulders to 
theirs. Is it the consensus of church-goers as 
to pulpit discourses ? No popular vote has yet 
been taken. The "dictionary of phrases" tells 
not the time or place of its advent. We are 
left to infer that like George McDonald's baby, 
it came " out of the everywhere into the here." 
At all events the sermon seems to have attained 
the distinction of being the standard of stupid- 



"AS DULL AS A SERMON." 19 

ity. Hosea Ballou 2d used to say that his 
| D.D." stood for " Dreadful Dull," but those 
who heard, interpreted it, " Delightful Divine." 
Fortunately, the sermon is not the only cri- 
terion of dullness. The common sense of man- 
kind permits an occasional variation, — for ex- 
ample, " as dull as a beetle," meaning a wooden 
hammer, not, however, a very inspiring associ- 
ation ; in Holland the ministers share the dis- 
tinction, with the civil officers, " As dull as the 
debates of Dutch burgomasters on cheese par- 
ings and candle ends." And even in free 
America we find an occasional fling at public 
functionaries, as in " The Boston Herald," " Sen- 
ator Hoar speaks a good word for the wider cir- 
culation of ' The Congressional Record.' The 
best way for him to accomplish this purpose is 
to contribute more frequently to its columns. 
As a rule they are too deadly dull to be inter- 
esting." And we all know what a spectacle of 
inattention is presented by legislative bodies, 
when addressed by the average member. They 
entertain themselves by reading, writing, loaf- 
ing, — even if they are not absent in body as 
in spirit, enjoying the aromatic weed in the lob- 
bies and coat-rooms. It is a comfort to know 
that there is something dull besides the beetle, 
the burgomaster, and the parson. 



20 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

I cannot but wonder whether the politician, the 
lawyer, the platform lecturer, if put to the same 
test of subject and frequency, might not figure 
with the clergy, as standards of dullness. Even 
the highest literary productions do not escape 
the sharp point of the critic. Matthew Arnold 
thought Tennyson deficient in intellectual 
power, and his lines on the Prince Consort of 
no value ; Macaulay was very uninteresting, 
with a dash of intellectual vulgarity; Swin- 
burne offended by using a hundred words where 
one would suffice. Leading editorials, maga- 
zine articles, and even novels, do not always 
keep the reader on the alert. There is nodding 
elsewhere, it would seem, than in the church. 
Webster is kind enough, in his definition, to 
vary the monotony, and say, " as a dull story 
or dull sermon." Ministers ought not to ob- 
ject to a reasonable share of this distinction, 
seeing they are in such good company. 

After all, I suspect the saying is not to be 
taken too seriously. All professions are the 
victims of good-natured flings and exaggerations; 
and it is pleasant to know that the clergy 
are no exception to the general rule. To omit 
them would reflect upon their importance. 
When a public man gets so far along as to be 
caricatured, he feels flattered. Lord Brougham's 



"AS DULL AS A SERMON. 11 21 

nose, Beaconsfield's locks, Conkling's strut and 
Butler's eyes, in " Puck " and " Punch," gave 
them better standing before the public. And so, if 
sharp practice comes to be "deaconing," and 
temperance taking " a drop behind the door," 
and lying synonymous with lawyer, and bleed- 
ing (in the modern way) the reputation of the 
physician, and pedantry and spectacles a sug- 
gestion of " the Hub," and the satanic press 
sensational journalism, and the wild and woolly 
west the equivalent of the Mississippi Valley 
and the Rockies, and dullness the characteristic 
of the pulpit, we may be happy that we are all 
in the same boat. 

We have about come to the conclusion, there- 
fore, that the saying " as dull as a sermon " 
belongs in the category with the good-natured 
chaffing about being as dead as Philadelphia be- 
cause the Quaker city is well " laid out ; " or the 
Chicago girl's foot, because everything out West 
takes on the proportions of prairies and great 
lakes; or the intellectual stiltiness of Boston 
finding illustration in the detectives, one of 
whom said, " I think I made a big hit in cap- 
turing that crook. He thought his disguise 
was impenetrable." "What disguise?" asked 
his associate. " Oh, bad grammar, and a pre- 
tended dislike for baked beans." The popular 



22 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

phrase, " as dull as a sermon," is really a com- 
pliment to the uniform merit of the ordinary- 
preacher. 

But after all, actions speak louder than words, 
and practice better than phrases. If sermons are 
really not of interest why do the great dailies, and 
even the local papers, give full reports of them? 
Why did Professor Park tell the General Court 
of Massachusetts about the indebtedness of the 
State to the clergy? Why do we pause over 
Sprague's " Annals of the American Pulpit," 
and Fish's " Treasury of Sacred Eloquence " ? 
Why were volumes of sermons like Robertson's, 
Phillips Brooks', Martineau's, Beecher's, issued 
by the great publishing companies, and why 
now continued in such sermons as McLeod's, 
McKenzie's, John Caird's, and Professor Pea- 
body's? If it is said that these sermons are 
exceptional, it may be replied that the average 
discourse does not need to range so high, to have 
a reasonable degree of instruction and interest. 
The saying " as dull as a sermon " makes no dis- 
tinction as to the sermons. It lumps all pulpit 
productions and makes them dull alike. 

But even the common-place pulpit a genera- 
tion ago had something to do in molding pub- 
lic thought in the great Civil War, and more 
recently in the Venezuelan affair, and is just 



"AS DULL AS A SERMON.'" 23 

now stirring up the public mind about Cuba 
and the Philippines. These incidental facts tell 
more as to the influence of the pulpit than the 
circulation- of an empty saying. 

The pulpit stands for great interests and 
principles. " Men," says a writer, " are hungry 
for ideas; for just views of the great problems 
of life and death; for thoughts of God. And 
the man who has the power to preach might 
easily repeat in Boston or New York the ex- 
perience of Chalmers, Guthrie and McLeod in 
the great Scotch cities." In fact, he is already 
doing so. There is no little flinging at what is 
called "mere preaching," and "pulpit plati- 
tudes." A minister sends out his circular to 
the un-churched population and gets exactly 
what he bids for. Word is sent back, " Your 
sermons are prosy and uninteresting." But 
what is the standard of the prosaic and uninter- 
esting? Is there any more interest with such 
persons in fine literature, art, and music? What 
must sermons contain to engage a certain class 
of minds? Such individuals need the sermon 
just in proportion to their lack of interest in it; 
and the least attractive part of it may be the 
most helpful to them. A Yale student on his 
way from a sermon by Dr. Leonard Bacon said 
to himself, " The doctor was unusually prosy 



24 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

to-night. The only thing that he said worth 
meditating on was this : ' If it is reasonable to 
be a Christian, why not become one now? ' ' 
That question kept returning, and the result 
was the earnest Christian educator, President 
Raymond, the first president of Vassar College. 
A very dull sermon, whetted by the Spirit, may 
become sharper than any two-edged sword. 

Bishop Potter, in his recent annual address, 
says, " My quarrel with the modern preacher is 
that he has so soon and so easily reached a con- 
clusion which disparages the pulpit as a throne 
and the possibility of its persuasive influence 
in his hands who can use it with a reverence 
for its divine institution and an enduring faith 
in its supernatural power." His caution to 
young ministers against the pitfalls of extem- 
poraneous preaching, echoed by another, who 
affirms that the fad of extemporaneous preach- 
ing has lowered the quality of pulpit work, is 
not pertinent, since it is not a question of 
method, but of personal and professional prepar- 
ation, which will arouse and instruct, with any 
system of discourse. No one method will fit 
all minds. But one spirit will animate and 
make effective all possible methods. Dr. Gun- 
saulus calls for " flying artillery preaching," — 
a warm, hospitable, human sermon, delivered 



"AS DULL AS A SERMON." 25 

where men are. All right if he chances to be 
a Gatling gun, but other Gospel armaments may 
also be brought into requisition. Effective 
preaching may be of many kinds ; a fact that we 
need to remember in our verdict on preachers. 

The sermon must also adjust itself to changed 
conditions. Reform in methods of ministerial 
education is fast being instituted in schools of 
divinity. The theological course will soon be 
modified to fit the minister to the changed 
thought and condition of the world. As radi- 
cal a transformation is taking place in literature. 
" The New York Ledger " passes from a weekly 
to a monthly. The daily papers have invaded 
its specialty of short, sensational stories. The 
supply is found elsewhere. The appetite calls 
for a different caterer. Not so bad, perhaps, is 
George Meredith's mot, "It is autumn time in 
our literature. The leaves are falling — espe- 
cially the fig leaves." But readjustment is pro- 
ceeding on many lines, and it must affect the 
form, but not the principle and purpose of the 
sermon. 

" The Congregationalist " has an article on 
" The Literary versus the Theological View of 
Life." The literary form is becoming the domi- 
nant and characteristic note of modern preaching. 
Change in theological belief, and the vast in- 



26 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

crease of literary activity are noted. One min- 
ister is reported as laying less stress on doctrinal 
themes, and giving more incidents from every- 
day life. Another concludes he has been too 
serious in preaching ; people are not made good 
by direct doctrinal appeals, but by indirection. 
A third concludes the standards of piety are 
too high for the mass of men ; more regard is 
needed to the facts and sympathies of life. 
And so the sermon is increasing its interest by 
fresh adaptations. 

A most discouraging thing, however, is the 
minister's depreciation of his own craft. He 
often incidentally, and sometimes directly, gives 
countenance to the saying " As dull as a ser- 
mon." He affects to be above that kind of 
literature. " He fouls his own nest." " I 
never," he makes haste to say, " read ser- 
mons." I wonder why he inflicts his own upon 
the public. One writes to his religious jour- 
nal, " If you never read a sermon before, 
read the one by Dr. Blank in this issue," 
— the implication being that ordinarily it is 
not to be expected. Another writes, " The 
sermon was well worth reading, which is say- 
ing a good deal for a sermon." He could not 
praise one sermon without a sly dig at all the 
others. Perhaps his own people will take him 



11 AS DULL AS A SERMON." 27 

at his expressed estimate of the sermon's worth. 
The Rev. Samuel M. Crothers, in an inter- 
esting article in the February " Atlantic " on 
"The Enjoyment of Poetry," casts just a little 
shadow across the path of his professional breth- 
ren : " In these days we are likely to hear dis- 
courses from the pulpit on the Religion of the 
Poets. The theme is a noble one, but fre- 
quently it is treated in too ponderous a fashion. 
There is a religion of the poets which comes 
with power to many who care little for the 
religion of the priests. But it is not formal 
and didactic. It is the welling up of that 
* natural poetry ' of which Wordsworth speaks.'' 
But why deprive the pulpit of " the enjoyment 
of poetry," when its gems are allowed to enliven 
the pages of the magazine ? Is it a weak at- 
tempt to cover up the badge of the clerical pro- 
fession ? " That," said a hearer, " was a good 
sermon of Dr. Binks', and would have been 
perfect if he had not interpolated a few sen- 
tences of his own." Do let the minister have 
the privilege of quoting poetry, without making 
that, too, as dull as the sermon. 

Well it may be said, that sermons are a pecu- 
liar production delivered for a special purpose, 
and to end with an occasion, — as a hot shot 
out of a gun ; that not being written nor spoken 



28 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

to be read, they are not effective to the eye. 
But I am persuaded that some clergymen culti- 
vate a reputation of indifference to sermonic 
literature. 

Dr. Hale, in a recent article on Dr. Charming, 
quotes Mr. Cogswell, the first librarian of the 
Astor Library, as saying, " This library, while 
I administer it, will receive every book it can 
get, on every subject, except sermons and nov- 
els." He explained his interest in hearing ser- 
mons, but they were for the time. We have 
lived to see the novel much in evidence in our 
libraries, and the remark concerning sermons 
was far too sweeping. It would have turned 
into tremulous air the productions of the re- 
nowned preachers of the world, including Chan- 
ning himself, and if applied to oratory on 
other subjects, would be equally destructive. 
For what orator does not depend largely on the 
place, people and time, as well as on the theme ? 

The repudiators of sermonic literature are 
not better than Professor Park of Andover. He 
has been a great reader of Edwards, South, 
Howe, and Jeremy Taylor; and of modern 
preachers, Spurgeon, Storrs, Henry Van Dyke, 
and Moody. On the contrary he has read spar- 
ingly of poetry, and not at all of fiction, — 
which shows the tendency to run to extremes. 



"AS DULL AS A SERMON." 29 

More love and matrimony and less election and 
reprobation might have been wholesome for the 
mind. But his intellectual diet has not short- 
ened his life. He is ninety, and not ninety in 
the shade, either. It is the privilege of the 
ministry, at all events, whether in high or hum- 
ble stations, to guard its honor, to magnify the 
office and the man, and to remember that dull 
pews will make a poor sermon as well as 
dull speaking, and that not infrequently the 
dull pulpit is a reflection of dull hearers. 



30 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 



IV. 

THE GUEST CHAMBER. 

The ghosts of frigid memories may be aroused, 
should the guest chamber be identified with the 
old-time spare room — especially with the frost- 
king congealing the breath, and working his 
marvelous designs upon the window-panes. 
When hospitality to the clerical profession was 
more extended than at present, it was some- 
times known as the minister's room, and the 
heralds of the Gospel were not averse to often 
risking its privileges. 

In days antedating the modern appliances for 
heating, the guest chamber was just a trifle too 
suggestive of some views of Christian benevo- 
lence ; it was as cold as charity. It might have 
recalled that, no doubt apocryphal, gentleman, 
who being accidentally confined in a large re- 
frigerator, was asked upon his release how he 
felt while incarcerated, and remarked — as if he 
were at a church sociable. But the spare room 
and the church sociable have alike changed for 
the better. No longer does the exaggerated 



THE GUEST CHAMBER. 31 

ncident apply, if it ever did, to the occupant 
:>f an antiquated guest chamber who had to 
eave the bed and curl himself up on the mar- 
ble top bureau, to prevent meeting his death. 

But such an incident would leave a false 
impression even in bygone days, for who ever 
missed the kindly offices of mine hostess in 
moderating the discomforts of the traditional 
bedroom, with the welcome warming-pan ; or the 
quickly generated heat, by means of the domes- 
tic jugglery, diffusing a thermal radiation, 
which like Cowper's cup of tea, cheers, but not 
inebriates ? Fortunately there is no woe against 
putting the bottle to our neighbor's feet. 

It must not, however, be forgotten that the 
spare room of the former domestic dispensation, 
as rehabilitated in memory and imagination, was 
an indispensable factor in the household econ- 
omy. There must be a place in the heart and 
home, no matter how humble, for dispensing 
hospitality. If not so entertaining to the young 
scions of the family as the attic with its spin- 
ning-wheels and innumerable other relics of a 
memorable past, turning it into a veritable curi- 
osity shop or Noah's ark — the spare room was 
far more mysterious and ghostlike. It was kept 
apart and devoted to the most sacred ministries 
of kinship and friendship, or brought into requi- 



32 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 



. 



sition only on the most exceptional household 
occasions. 

The stiff, tall furniture arranged with painful 
precision against the wall, the high feather bed 
and its faultless counterpane, the pictures illus- 
trative of Scripture subjects, rural scenes, patri- 
otic statesmen, or military heroes, revealed the 
plain, enduring virtues and modest family cor- 
diality, out of which they came. 

And how much it embodied of the past, with 
its fleeting family life, memorable anniversaries, 
and extended acquaintanceship. How many 
stories its walls might tell of the generations 
that had shared its shelter and gone their way 
upon the earth, or passed into the guest chamber 
of higher mansions. Hawthorne tells the mean- 
ings of such a room in "The House of the 
Seven Gables." " The bed-chamber, no doubt, 
was a chamber of very great and varied experi- 
ence, as a scene of human life ; the joy of bridal 
nights had throbbed itself away here ; new im- 
mortals had first drawn earthly breath here ; and 
here old people had died ; but a person of deli- 
cate instinct would have known at once that it 
had now, by the visit of Phoebe Pyncheon, be- 
come a maiden's bed-chamber, and had become 
purified of all former evil and sorrow by her 
sweet breath, and happy thoughts." 



THE GUEST CHAMBER. 33 

And it is pleasing to know that the sancti- 
ties and suggestions of the guest chamber, no 
matter what its form or furnishing, join together 
all the ages of the world, and touch the springs 
of life which make the whole world kin. 

It calls to mind the great woman of Shunem 
in the days of the Prophet Elisha who said to 
her husband, " Behold now, I perceive that this 
is a holy man of God, which passeth by us con- 
tinually. Let us make a little chamber, I pray 
thee, on the wall ; and let us set for him there 
a bed, and a stool, and a candlestick: and it 
shall be when he cometh to us, that he shall 
turn in thither." And the Shunammite woman 
builded better than she knew, for the prophet 
entered into the greatest joys and sorrows of 
her life. The little chamber on the wall came 
to have a door opening into the chamber of her 
heart, and grew tremulous, as every room does 
through the years, with memory, faith and hope. 
We may say of any guest chamber, " so much 
of mankind's varied experience had passed there, 
— so much had been suffered, and something, 
too, enjoyed, — that the very timbers were oozy, 
as with the moisture of a heart. It was itself 
like a great human heart with a life of its own, 
and full of rich and somber reminiscences." 

Do not echoes reach us to this day from 



34 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

" that large upper room furnished," in the holy 
city? and the question returns over and over 
again, " Where is the guest chamber [or stran- 
ger's room] where I shall eat the passoyer with 
my disciples ? " Have they not a deeper mean- 
ing as the Lenten Season brings us once more 
into closer sympathy with the heart problems, 
and sacred communions, of the guest chamber 
out of which came the tragedy and victory of 
the Master's life? 

I have beside me as I write a volume entitled 
" The Chamber of Peace," bound in brown linen, 
embellished with blue harebells, and bearing the 
memories of one who often met in the chamber 
of peace where she waited and worshiped for 
years, this same divine guest who knocks at 
every heart door and would become the com- 
panion of all lives. How finely Bunyan draws 
the closing scene of such a lifelong communion : 
" The Pilgrim they laid in a large upper cham- 
ber, facing the sun-rising. The name of the 
chamber was Peace." 

But the old guest chamber belongs to former 
times. The advent of domestic comforts — 
steam and electricity, combined with the ampler 
means of the people — have brought even to the 
farm and village an improved household econ- 
omy. Human habitations in remote districts 



THE GUEST CHAMBER. 35 

are rendered genial and radiant by modern ap- 
pliances. And it is needless to say that archi- 
tecture and art, combined with good taste, and 
easier and more natural family ways, have con- 
verted the guest chambers of city homes into 
embodiments of beauty and harmony, to repose 
in which is a veritable means of grace. 

It was my privilege not long ago to occupy a 
guest chamber in a home of the Empire State, 
with which I was familiar at the very beginning 
of my ministry. It was incorporated in a fine 
old mansion, erected in his native town by a 
retired merchant of New York City, a man of 
high character and Christian faith. The spa- 
cious home was built in the style of its time, 
with liberal halls and stairways, lofty ceilings, 
elegant and elaborate finishings and furnishings, 
and adorned with the paintings of noted artists. 
Its situation is just a little retired from the 
public highway, and the entrance reached by 
driveways running through a grove of fine old 
trees. It has entertained many guests, not a 
few of whom were members and friends of our 
faith. Memories of Chapin, with whose church 
in New York the host in his life-time was asso- 
ciated, and of Sawyer, familiar with the region, 
of Balch, of Nye, and a host of others, linger 
about the fine old homestead, — as they do 



36 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

around other households in the general vicinity. 
The years had brought wonderful transforma- 
tions to the little church, to families and per- 
sonal friends. The members of the household 
who remain represent the broken lights of the 
past, and administer yet the old-time cordiality 
under the same roof and in the same commodious 
apartments. 

But the guest chamber, again renewed in 
memory, seemed fragrant with many lives. 
The figures of the past which had come and 
gone, — as kindred, friends, visitors, — were 
grouped by fancy into one undivided band. 
The nutter of wings seemed to disturb the 
silence of the generation since the guest chamber 
had heard my foot-fall. All the clergymen 
who sat about the board of its dining-hall as 
guests, on the day of my ordination to the 
ministry in the little church, and made the 
intervening hour bright with social life and 
flashes of wisdom, intermingled with many a 
merry quip, — from Chapin, who preached the 
sermon, along the whole line, — have gone the 
way of all the earth. The moments of meditation 
in the guest chamber of the old mansion were 
significant and suggestive. 

I found in the morning by the side of the 
high pier mirror, reposing modestly among such 



THE GUEST CHAM BEE. 37 

little aesthetic fancies as a tasteful mind and 
deft hand might gather, half revealed and half 
concealed by its surroundings, a tasteful brochure, 
and on its unprinted pages the autographs and 
dates of occupancy of many who had made the 
guest chamber their temporary abiding place. 
And as a greeting to its visitors the little book- 
let breathed the good wishes of these lines, 
which, to me, were made vocal with many 
tongues : — 

" Sleep sweetly in this quiet room, 

O thou, whoe'er thou art, 
And let no mournful yesterdays 

Disturb thy peaceful heart. 
Thy Master is thy changeless friend, 
His love surrounds thee still ; 
Forget thyself and all the world — 

Put out each light — 
The stars are watching overhead ; 

Sleep sweetly, then, — Good-night !" 

The guest chamber was pervaded no longer 
by sadness, but radiant with memory and faith, 
hope and heaven. Like Hawthorne's guest 
chamber under the seven gables, it seemed to 
front towards the east, so that at a very season- 
able hour a glow of crimson light came flooding 
through the windows and bathed the aspiring 
ceiling and heavy drapery in its own hue. 



THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 



A TIE VOTE. 

A few days ago the Senate of the United 
States was equally divided on a public question, 
and must have remained indefinitely in that 
balanced condition, had not the vice-president 
— the presiding officer — broken the deadlock 
by a casting vote. 

Not a few of the State legislatures have been 
of late in practically the same situation, touch- 
ing the election of United States Senators. The 
votes have not been decisive. "No choice " 
has been the oft repeated announcement after 
the ballotings. The situation has been so 
marked by the mutual checking of political 
forces, that nothing whatever was accomplished. 
Perhaps some one — very likely before these 
lines are read — will use the balance of power 
or change position, and so break the combina- 
tions, and produce decisive action. But while 
the vote remains a tie, the monotonous action 
continues, and no positive direction is taken. 



A TIE VOTE. 39 

It is the boy on his rocking-horse, much motion 
but no progress. 

Which things are an allegory. Are not the 
faculties of our being in general convention 
assembled, a kind of legislative body arrayed in 
hostile camps, often so balanced as to prevent 
decision, and practically rendering null and 
void personal service and influence? These 
contending parties are known in the republic of 
the soul as the flesh and the spirit, the world 
and the church, God and Mammon, and they 
often so neutralize each other as to bring the 
moral being, as regards decided influence, to a 
dead standstill. A tie vote occurs in the 
spiritual legislature, and nothing whatever is 
accomplished. The presiding officer, Conscience, 
should give the casting vote and throw the 
whole weight on the right side. 

But as long as the deadlock continues the 
Senate of the soul remains in equipoise between 
the two evenly divided forces. This neutraliz- 
ing contention will go on until the spiritual 
situation is changed by the vigorous and con- 
trolling action of some member who will carry 
the whole body to one side or the^other. And 
that act of decision is the crucial point — the 
decisive hour — of a human life. This dead- 
lock of the soul must be broken. It is needless 



40 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

to say that too many are chronically in this 
state of suspended action. They are found 
tetering between opposing forces, losing by a 
hair's weight, a strong positive religious bear- 
ing, and counteracting the good there is in 
them, by lack of preponderating influence on 
the right side. They are tied up by opposing 
votes. It is the Senate of contending faculties, 
without any commanding presence to give a 
casting vote — an invisible Delaware or Penn- 
sylvania legislature, unable to free itself from 
contending interests, and come to a determining 
action. 

I suspect the Master himself encountered 
this religious deadlock when he said to a 
wavering young life, " One thing thou lackest." 
There the youth stood poised for a while be- 
tween rival tendencies, unable to carry the 
legislature for the Christian side, until at last 
some lobbyist or demagogue or briber turned 
the balance in the wrong direction, and he went 
away sorrowful. 

A like result confronts every soul tied up in 
a half and half way, preventing preponderating 
action, and causing a loss of spiritual energy 
and direction. We are simply the victims of a 
tie vote, and fail to take whole-hearted posi- 
tions on the right side. Our influence for 



A TIE VOTE. 41 

good causes is therefore at zero. When the 
Tennesseean was summoned to declare for the 
Union or secession, he hesitated because of 
the risk on either side, until at last, giving it 
up, he declared, " Gentlemen, I'm nothin', and 
mighty little of that ! " It is the result of 
every tie vote among our senatorial faculties. 
An illiterate man thus balanced, when sum- 
moned to declare himself, unconsciously hit the 
nail on the head : " I'm nuisance ; " for a man 
who says "I'm neutral" practically proclaims 
himself " a nuisance," so far at least as all good 
movements are concerned. The Scotch woman 
who, being pressed by her minister for a de- 
scription of Adam, finally said, " Weel, he was 
just like Jeems Madden, ye ken; naebody got 
anything by him and mony lost." The same 
is true of a self-neutralizing life. 

Can we not bring into the councils of our 
being something approaching unanimity as to 
our religious position and service ? No one can 
deny that there is a great lack of personal in- 
fluence by reason of this tie vote between the 
opposing sides of our nature. We are not in- 
fluentially committed to any position. We can- 
not be reckoned upon as positive forces. If 
counted at all on the side of religion, it is rather 
from courtesy on the part of others than con vie- 



42 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

tion on the part of ourselves. What is needed 
is the casting vote. A little of the stricter, 
severer ruling of a spiritual Tom Reed might 
liberate us from the paralysis of our higher 
powers. And instead of carrying our inward 
forces by a paltry casting vote, with its narrow 
chances, why not do, as is often done in nomi- 
nating bodies, move to make it unanimous, and so 
fulfill Paul's desire that the whole spirit and soul 
and body be committed to the divine service ? 
A concentration of influence on our part would 
help to carry other divided soul-assemblies for 
righteousness and truth. 

I remember standing by a gentleman when 
an early acquaintance who had not seen him for 
many years approached and eagerly inquired, 
"Is not this John Rantain?" Extending his 
hand heartily, the gentleman addressed an- 
swered, " It is, by a large majority" It is well 
if a man is a Christian by a large majority, but 
far better if he can carry the whole convention 
of powers, and produce one undisputed and 
unmistaken impression. That is what our 
churches need and what our ministry is just 
now especially seeking. The prime necessity is 
to break the spiritual deadlock, neutralize the 
tie vote in the soul, and set it moving with con- 
stancy and concentration on the right side. 



A TIE VOTE. 43 

" Johnny," said his mother, " this is the sixth 
time you've asked me to let you play with 
Willie Tuffly. Now, how many times do you 
wish me to say no?" "None," replied Johnny; 
" I'm huntin' for a yes." We are hunting for 
the same thing — an affirmative on the side of 
Christian decision, so vigorously pronounced 
that the tie vote blocking the wheels of our 
being will lose its power. I am quite sure if we 
should adopt John Quincy Adams' standard, and 
weigh the ballots instead of counting them, the re- 
sult would be on the right side. As it is, this tie 
vote of human nature finds illustration in the 
dialogue of the young wife and her husband. 
She summoned him to rock the baby, and when 
he hesitated enforced the summons on the 
ground that half the baby belonged to him, and 
it was only fair that he should do half the do- 
mestic service ; whereupon he remarked, "Well, 
you can rock your half, and let my half holler." 
The Christian cradle presents many such infantile 
exhibitions. The different halves clamor alone 
for their own interests. To unify the demand 
of character, to seek first, and central to all the 
rest, the divine kingdom, to harmonize the 
action of the United Soul's Congress, will crown 
our life legislation with success. 



4-4 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 



VI. 

THE CHAUTAUQITAX SALUTE. 

The Chautauquan Institute, just now begin- 
ning its second quarter century, among a num- 
ber of other things has given rise to the famous 
Chautauquan Salute. It is the greeting given 
in their great assemblies by the flutter of 
handkerchiefs — a sort of " wave offering," so 
to speak — and if not to the Lord, after the 
Jewish wave offering of shoulders and sheaves, 
— then to the Lord's representatives. 

The Chautauquan Salute has been widely 
adopted by the Christian Endeavor societies, 
the Epworth Leagues, and the Young People's 
Unions, as expressive of welcome, approval, and 
enthusiasm. And it must be confessed that the 
simultaneous, almost magical, display of scores 
and hundreds of these white-winged, lace- 
trimmed messengers, dancing on the delicate 
finger-tips of fair hands, creates a pleasing and 
rapturous impression. Without doubt, we shall 
behold it in all its efflorescence and effulgence of 
fervor at the coming National Conference of 



THE CHAUTAUQUAN SALUTE. 45 

Young People's Unions in Lynn. Such mani- 
festations of youthful zeal, so daintily ex- 
pressed, always awaken and extend the same 
feelings in others. Mental moods are catching. 

In fact, any expression of unity, loyalty, 
patriotism, philanthropy or piety, is flame- 
kindling to kindred sentiments. The waving 
palm branches in Jerusalem at the triumphal 
entry of Jesus touched the sensibilities of the 
Master, and aroused the religious and national 
memories and hopes of the people. The wav- 
ing banners in Boston and in the surrounding 
towns, over the recent return from service of 
the Fifth Regiment of Massachusetts, — a scene 
repeated in many sections throughout the land, 
— stirred the gratitude and admiration of the 
beholders. 

The history of the different methods of 
salutation in social, civic, and religious life, 
would prove to be an interesting study. The 
firing of cannon, the dipping of colors, the pre- 
senting of arms, the symbolical designs, the 
grouping of decorations, the display of portraits, 
are a few of these salutatory manifestations 
designed to express emotions, and honor persons 
and principles. The ways of salutation in other 
nations, ancient and modern, would open up a 
curious and instructive investigation. But they 



46 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

all spring from the same root in human nature. 
And among these is to be found to-day the dis- 
play known as the Chautauquan Salute. 

But while the poetical and sentimental side 
of the handkerchief salutation is attractive and 
significant, it has sometimes occurred to me 
that on the line of a deeper and more thought- 
ful delicacy, and especially on the line of 
sanitation, the Chautauquan Salute does not 
commend itself to the hygienic and biological 
wisdom of the present generation. 

When we consider the vast national and 
international gatherings, — such as the great 
Sunday School Convention soon to meet in 
Atlanta, and the Young People's organizations 
that from time to time throng our cities, — 
breathing the exhausted air in halls and 
churches, and oppressed by a high temperature, 
and then come to add to this the subtile and 
invisible exhalations let loose by this modern 
" hand language," it drops from the fairy region 
of sentiment to the dead level of science. The 
gauzy wings of the white doves, palpitating 
their welcome on the air, are instantly clipped by 
the cold shears of this hard, matter-of-fact age. 
The beautiful illusion is dispelled when we 
come to look beneath the outward flash and 
flutter to the deeper laws that govern health 



THE CRAUTAUQUAN SALUTE. 47 

and life. And the hidden danger is intensified 
when we reflect that the circumstances of a 
great assembly in unwonted situations, of neces- 
sity may partially suspend John Wesley's dic- 
tum, that cleanliness is next to godliness. 

This sentimental and scientific analysis of 
the Chautauquan salute may, in the opinion of 
some, savor of a supersensitiveness that would 
put under the microscope and scalpel, for classi- 
fication and dissection, the most sacred and 
cherished elements of life ; and provoke com- 
parison with the lady of an intensely modern 
type, who was asked why she no longer sent 
her son to school, and replied that she found it 
impossible to get him " sterilized" so early in 
the morning. Nevertheless, while the Young 
People's organizations are busy evolving new 
banners, new songs, new methods, why may 
they not expend some of their well-known grit 
and grace and genius in devising a new mode 
of salutation which shall conform to both sacred 
and sanitary conditions. Such an expedient 
would harmonize with the advanced spirit of 
the times. In these days of the merry microbe, 
the banqueting bacillus, the brave bacterium, 
the innocent infusorium and the preying para- 
site, when the germ theory dominates what we 
breathe and eat and drink and are, so that the 



48 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

only absolutely safe thing is to die and be done 
with it altogether — the usages of society ought 
to conform to the latest knowledge. What if 
the result should be similar in some instances 
to that up-to-date physiologist who had so 
studied his individual make-up that he feared 
to pick up a pin lest he break one of his minute 
ten million blood vessels. 

Already these new ideas, however, are ex- 
cluding feculent matter from drinking-water by 
nitration, destroying extraneous life in the 
lacteal fluid by sterilization, in garments and 
dwelling houses by disinfection, from streets 
and cars by controlling the sub-maxillary and 
sub-lingual glands, by interdicting Paul's salu- 
tation of the holy kiss, and even from Christian 
fellowship by individual communion cups. The 
extent and variety of life have been wonder- 
fully revealed, and organisms are seen to multi- 
ply with marvelous rapidity both by fission and 
by spores. This whole thing is in the air, 
literally so, — and everywhere else for that 
matter, — and the Chautauquan salute must 
recognize the situation and govern itself accord- 
ingly. 

But besides these sanitary and scientific con- 
siderations, based on a better knowledge of life 
and nature, it is embarrassing to think of the 



THE CHAUTAUqUAN SALUTE. 49 

innumerable and indescribable perfumeries re- 
leased upon the circumambient air by the 
waving of a thousand handkerchiefs. What 
strange aerial combinations and companionships 
must be realized as these pungent particles 
meet and greet and mingle, neutralizing each 
other's peculiarities, or blending to produce new 
ones for the astonishment of the olfactory 
nerves. The very idea of it confuses the senses 
and suggests some one's description (was it 
Coleridge's ?) of the distinct concentrated es- 
sences of the city of Cologne. These invisible 
spirits of the air bear names of marvelous 
variety, — some drawn from nature, — as violet, 
heliotrope, white rose, crab-apple blossom, lilac, 
magnolia, musk, lily of the valley, maynower, 
and pink; some from localities, as Persian 
bouquet, Morbel of Peru, Florida water, Rob 
Roy, French carnation, Indian bouquet, Orizaba, 
and Ylang Ylang; some from miscellaneous 
sources, as Jockey Club, poponax, and Baby 
Ruth, — a perfumed tribute to the Cleveland 
family. So lovely ! 

The most of these volatile and penetrating 
extracts and essences, taken separately and at 
first hand, might delight the senses, but this 
transfusion of spirits and swapping of identities 
is more confusing than the Christian denomina- 



50 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

tions, and makes stranger bed-fellows than 
politics. 

And so, while the handkerchief is a necessary 
adjunct of civilization, and a symptom of the 
progress of mankind, it has its limitations, and 
may well be retired from active duty as a 
medium of emotion. If it should be put to 
vote in an intelligent assembly as to its use 
in this respect, I have very little doubt but 
that the noes would have it. 



A SWEET REVENGE. 51 



VII 

A SWEET REVENGE 

When Whittier was asked, whether the 
cruelties of Andersonville prison did not make 
him crave revenge, he replied, the act of eman- 
cipation was the revenge for Andersonville. 
Such revenges are sweet according to the high- 
est Christian standards. The satisfaction of a 
noble mind is to return good for evil, and wit- 
ness the success of movements for truth, free- 
dom, and humanity, for which labor and life 
have been expended. 

A like noble revenge is just now associated 
with the memory of the Rev. Hosea Ballou. 
His birthday fell on Sunday, April 30 ; and at 
the very hour when not a few of our ministers 
were making an improvement of the anniver- 
sary, the Rev. George A. Gordon, D.D., pastor 
of the Old South Church of Boston, was deliv- 
ering a remarkable discourse, in celebration of 
the abrogation a few days before, by his church, 
of the Westminster Confession, for so many 



52 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

years, and still in many parts, the recognized 
standard of the Orthodox faith. 

It was a remarkable and pleasing coincidence, 
that Dr. Gordon fell upon the birthday of Mr. 
Ballou for expressing his repudiation of the 
hoary Calvinistic tenets. As the old hero of 
faith looked down from celestial heights upon 
the scene in the Old South Church, and listened 
to the scathing words of an accredited evangel- 
ical clergyman, and saw the large congregation 
agreeing with the preacher's estimate of the old- 
time formula, it must have been just such a 
sweet revenge as might fill the cup of happiness 
of any saint in heaven. No more appropriate 
observance of the faithful pioneer's advent into 
this world, and of his work in demolishing the 
dogmas of the creeds, could have been devised 
by Dr. Gordon, had he set out to pay honor to 
the ministry of that Universalist herald. 

It would not be amiss to extend to the Old 
South clergyman a vote of thanks for his timely 
deliverance. A most significant act it was, on 
such a day in the calendar of the Universalist 
Church, to formally strike the banner of ortho- 
doxy as a thing of the past. Dr. Miner pub- 
lished a book entitled " The Old Forts Taken," 
but even that stalwart soldier, living nearer to 
the revolutions and revelations of to-day, did 



A SWEET REVENGE. 53 

not anticipate a formal repudiation of the ven- 
erable Westminster Creed. Some of us can 
remember when the star-spangled banner was 
hoisted again over forts of the United States, 
where another flag had for a while displaced it. 
It was a sweet revenge for those who sought 
only the good of the whole land. It floated 
aloft with malice toward none, with charity for 
all. I was present in Lowell when a monument 
was dedicated to Ladd and Whitney, who fell 
in Baltimore on their way to defend the National 
Capitol in the Civil War, and I witnessed the 
ceremony of presenting the American flag from 
Maryland to Governor Andrew for Massachu- 
setts, as a symbol of sorrow and sympathy. 
These were acts of a noble revenge and recon- 
ciliation. 

A similar note of gratitude and joy must 
have been struck by the spirit, when on Father 
Ballou's anniversary the ensign of Calvinism 
was hauled down from the steeple of the Old 
South, and openly discarded as an expression of 
the faith of the people. 

It will be remembered that the Old South is 
the only orthodox church in Boston, antedating 
the present century, that was not swept into the 
Unitarian movement. The Park Street Church 
was later organized as a barrier against the 



54 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

incoming tide of a more reasonable faith, and 
Dr. Lyman Beecher became the standard bearer 
of the traditional creed. But now even the 
venerable Old South has, in a way more radical 
than all, boldly proclaimed its abandonment of 
the once dominant faith. Certainly the revenges 
of time are sweet, and when, as in this instance, 
repudiation of dogmas becomes coincident with 
the anniversary of the birth of a conspicuous 
leader of thought in the present century, we 
may hail it as a sort of poetic justice. The 
Providence of God seems to punctuate the 
event, and makes the contrast of the old and 
the new more emphatic and startling. 

In 1852 Hosea Ballou was present at a 
great festival of the Universalists in Boston. 
It was not long before his departure. The 
scene has become historic. The hall was deco- 
rated with flags, pennons, and festoons. Father 
Ballou was called upon to speak of the progress 
of the Universalis t faith. " Certain Scriptures," 
said he, " relating to the progress of truth, come 
to my mind;" and then he added, " I recall the 
handful of corn upon the top of the mountain 
and the fruit thereof shaking like Lebanon." 
" I saw the Universalist denomination when it 
was like that handful of corn upon the top of a 
sterile mountain, and I see it as I have seen it 



A SWEET REVENGE. 55 

this day. Does not the increase shake like 
Lebanon? I have lived to realize . . . that 
there is not an opposer of Universalism in the 
world, who is not at heart a Universalist. And 
how long do you suppose they can keep out of 
their heads that which is in their hearts ? " 
As the old Patriarch sat down, the whole 
assembly rose as by one impulse, and gave three 
cheers to the hero of many hard-fought battles. 
He was a seer, for heads and hearts join to-day 
their testimony. And in less than a half cen- 
tury from that inspiring scene, he looks down 
upon the most conspicuous representative of the 
orthodox faith in Boston, who, without the least 
terror of a trial for heresy, says harder things 
against Calvinism than Ballou could find it in 
his tender heart ever to utter. Dr. Gordon calls 
it " the disregarded, but unrepudiated, creed of 
the Presbyterian churches of Scotland and 
America." " No sane disciple of Christ can 
read the Gospel and say that the Westminster 
Confession is a true interpretation of it." " It 
was too much for human nature to bear to 
exalt God so high, and to sink man to such 
abysses. To be willing to be damned for the 
glory of God is more than man is equal to." 
"It contradicts the conscience and heart of 
mankind, and outrages every instinct of our 



56 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

nature." " In the name of the human heart, 
in the name of Christ's love, and in the name 
of his ignorance, let him refuse to repeat the 
Calvinistic blasphemy." And much more to 
the same effect, spoken in the general region of 
Father Ballou's old parish, and on his birthday. 

This is a revenge unalloyed by any earthly 
passion. The errors in religion assaulted by 
the School Street Universalist pulpit, and repre- 
sented, at that day, by the Old South pulpit, 
have been vanquished, and the white banner of 
universal love is displayed by the successors of 
those who stood for darkness and doubt. 
" Who," said President McKinley, on a recent 
occasion, " shall haul down the American flag?" 
Who, we may echo, will haul down the flag of 
universal law, love, liberty, and light, defiantly 
thrown to the theological breeze by Dr. Gordon, 
on the birthday of Hosea Ballou ? Not that 
any one man or denomination has done all this 
work. Not that Dr. Gordon agrees with the 
philosophy of Father Ballou, nor that the Old 
South preacher can be justly claimed as a 
Universalist. But he has joined, at this belated 
day, the ranks of those who have broken loose 
from the old systems, and is working in a new 
field to prepare the way for something better. 

Dr. Gordon throws now and then a sop to the 



A SWEET BEVENGE. 57 

old theory, and is still entangled in the meshes 
of Calvinistic conceptions. Their preconceived 
notions tinge his exegesis. He even involves 
the Bible in the horrors of Calvinistic reproba- 
tion. He lays down Universalist principles, 
and hesitates to draw Universalist conclusions. 
He makes no positive declaration of belief as to 
human destiny. He sees it possible that under 
the government of Universal power and benefi- 
cence souls may be forever lost. He leaves a 
doubt as to the final result, which wrenches 
the heart as badly as Calvinism, and. gives no 
certain comfort to any distracted mind. He 
presents a possible hope for all, in the future 
life, but is careful to make no affirmation that 
will classify him as believing in universal salva- 
tion. He is a John the Baptist, crying in the 
wilderness of past associations, and preparing 
the way for a positive statement of faith that 
will make the revenge of the Universalist pio- 
neers sweet indeed. 

Stopford A. Brooke told me, at the close of 
his sermon in Bedford Chapel, London, refer- 
ring to the doctrine of " eternal hope," " Eternal 
hope is eternal nothing. Humanity will have a 
positive faith as to the destiny of mankind." 
It will not accept Dr. Gordon's advice, " Let the 
bewildered Christian take refuge in his igno- 
rance." 



o8 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

Has the Christian revelation nothing for 
bewildered souls bnt "ignorance" on the su- 
preme question, involving every consideration 
touching human destiny? The Old South 
preacher must read once more the famous words 
of John Robinson, the Puritan, " For I am very 
confident that the Lord hath much more truth 
to break forth out of his Holy Word. . . . 
Though Luther and Calvin were burning and 
shining lights in their times, yet they pene- 
trated not into the whole counsel of God, but 
were they now living would be willing to em- 
brace further light." Further light must yet 
come for the agnostic, the compromiser, the 
straddler, enabling them to see a "successful 
God " only in a successful moral and spiritual 
universe. And that necessitates Universalism, 
the sweet revenge of infinite and everlasting 
love. 



THE GOSPEL AND THE NEXT MAN. 59 



VIII. 

THE GOSPEL AND THE NEXT MAN. 

In this day of Conventions, national and 
international, of political combinations, com- 
mercial corporations, and trusts, we are liable to 
overlook the importance of individual effort. 
The demand is organization, combination, and 
co-operation. This is the genius of the age, 
and is not to be indiscriminately combated. 

It may be well, nevertheless, — and, indeed, 
because of the present magnifying of social 
relations, — to make more emphatic the oppor- 
tunities that arise from personal contact, and so 
keep up the other side. We should not only 
recognize humanity in the aggregate, but take 
note of the separate units. The very next man, 
and every next man, presents for us the call to 
Christian duty. We may do service, through 
organizations and institutions, which constitute 
a present and commendable feature of the soli- 
darity of humanity, and also by using agents 
and proxies, — but this does not exempt us 
from personal effort to fill the opportunities all 



60 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

about us. The person who stands next to us 
in business, in society, in the church, in the 
home, is our missionary field, our means of 
church extension, and for setting in motion 
forces that may accomplish untold wonders. 

A generation or more ago this attention to 
the next duty was much insisted upon by the 
school of transcendentalists. It was then a 
novel thought. Carlyle and Emerson rang the 
changes on it. The clergy took up the cry, 
and enforced the duty and opportunity nearest 
to the individual. Attend to the next thing, 
and the next, as they arise, and so fill life right 
about you with beneficent deeds. 

James Freeman Clarke was possessed with 
this new-born philosophy of life. Dr. Hale, in 
his biography of this noble Christian man, says, 
" At the end of the divinity course, in those 
days, the young men of the Senior class began 
to write sermons, and to preach them as they 
were asked. It is an interesting thing to find 
that the text of his first sermon was the text of 
his life : 

" ' Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it 
with thy might.' The manuscript, afterward 
burned at the edges in an accidental fire, lies 
before me. It is indorsed in ink now brown, — 
4 Preached, Theological School ; first sermon ; ' 



THE GOSPEL AND THE NEXT MAN. 61 

again, < Preached at Mr. Whitman's, July 21, 
1833 ; ' again, ' Preached without notes, De- 
cember 1, 1833.'" 

After the formal introduction to the sermon 
he states the text as meaning, " What lies at 
hand: in other words, Perform thy nearest 
duty." Such was the resolution with which he 
went forth to battle. Young Clarke caught the 
idea that was in the atmosphere of his time, the 
duty nearest was to be attended to promptly, 
the next man was to be influenced, the pleading 
cause was to be assisted. To be useful, to be 
helpful, to be influential, did not require long out- 
looks, or a far-away vision. Find your oppor- 
tunity right about you. Speak to the next man. 

This makes a definite object, and an object 
practicable for each person. He does not beat 
the air or fire at random, but goes for the near- 
est duty, with a definite purpose and tangible 
result. Too often in our religious efforts, we 
actualize the boy's definition of a kitten : " A 
kitten is remarkable for rushing like mad at 
nothing whatever, and stopping before it gets 
there." Rushing like "mad," or rather like 
glad, for the next man, and never stopping till 
we get there, and getting there for his good, is 
the spirit and purpose of the earnest Christian. 

In fact, we may sometimes begin our Mis- 



62 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

sionary and Church Extension work a little 
nearer home than even the next man. Let it 
accomplish a more radical work within our- 
selves, and it will help us mightily in winning 
our next-door neighbor. " Make thyself right, 
and then thou mayest be sure there is one less 
rascal in the world," is Carlyle's pithy advice 
as to the way to begin reforming mankind. 

This method of looking after the next man 
we must not forget was the original method 
with the Gospel. The first disciples were a 
kind of " hand-picked " spiritual fruit. The 
tree of humanity was not shaken by a great 
tempest of the spirit till some time later at 
Pentecost. There were no windfalls. In the 
beginning it was from heart to heart and from 
home to home. We have the whole spirit of it 
in that early recital. Jesus called the next 
man. He was Andrew, and Andrew found his 
next man, and he did not have far to look for 
him, for he lighted right upon his own brother, 
Simon Peter, who became a wonderful apostle, 
and whose fame to-day fills the Christian world. 
The next day Jesus found Philip and called 
him, — a man a day, — and Philip straightway 
found Ms next man, and summoned Nathanael 
to the great work. And so this finding the 
next man has been going on till, standing side 



THE GOSPEL AND THE NEXT MAN. 63 

by side through the Christian centuries, the line 
would reach many times round the globe. So 
much for looking after the next man. Despise 
not the day of small things. Remember the 
leaven and the mustard-seed. 

The Episcopal Church has been utilizing for 
some time this primitive incident in the Gospel 
of the next man. It has " The Brotherhood of 
St. Andrew," based upon the circumstance of 
Andrew calling his own brother Simon. It is 
an organization of young Episcopalians. The 
individual members pledge themselves to do 
just what Andrew did, find a person and bring 
him into Christian service. Each finds another 
and induces him to join the ranks. He opens 
a recruiting-office for the Gospel. 

We do not have, and perhaps do not need, the 
" Brotherhood of St. Andrew." We have other 
organizations already, — the Christian Church, 
the Young People's Union, the Sunday School, 
and many auxiliary societies, and all we need is 
to fill the members, personally, with the spirit 
of St. Andrew, and have each representative 
look about him for the next person, — man, 
woman, or child, old or young, — and bring 
him into the Christian fold. Not more ma- 
chines, but more steam. That is the great 
work now to be done by our people. 



64 THINGS WISE AXD THEE WISE. 

It is not impossible that we may sometimes 
abuse the spirit of organization, and conclude 
that the general body is in some way a substi- 
tute for individual loyalty and service, the effect 
being practically expressed in this incident: 
" We are getting up a Klondike club." " When 
do you go?" '-We are not going at all; we 
are organizing to keep one another from going." 
Every member of a Christian organization is 
organized to go. By virtue of his position and 
relation, he is obliged to reach the next man and 
enlist him in the common service. There is 
nothing so powerful as a personality. Individ- 
uals have stood at the dividing of the ways in 
history and formed the pivots upon which has 
turned the destiny of the world. They have 
inspired the causes, enlisted the helpers next 
at hand, and the work so started has gone on 
conquering and to conquer. 

" A soul," says Martineau, " occupied with 
great ideas best performs small duties ; the 
divinest views of life penetrate most clearly 
the meanest emergencies." Get into your life 
the Christian law of social and spiritual attrac- 
tion and the lives about you will be penetrated 
by your personal power. And you also will 
conquer the next man. It may need only an 
earnest, sympathetic word, a cordial hand-grasp, 



THE GOSPEL AND THE NEXT MAN. 65 

backed by a good example. Dr. Pentecost puts 
it in this way: " Go, let go, help go." To do 
this you do not of necessity have to look far 
away to Japan, India, Africa. We need home 
missionaries, and very near home. In fact, there 
are plenty of foreign missions right about us, if 
that is your ambition. We have China, Ethi- 
opia, Italy, Portugal, Poland, and all the rest, 
around the corner, and others, even nearer to 
us, whom we may reach. 

"I do not ask to see 
The distant scene ; one step enough for me." 

Without even one step, right next to you, the 
opportunities of life will swarm in the way. 

What the humblest of us can do for others 
may be seen by this little " parable " from the 
« Wellspring " : 

" One night a man took a little taper out of 
a drawer and lighted it, and began to ascend a 
long, winding stair. 

" 4 Where are you going ? ' said the taper. 

" * Away high up,' said the man ; * higher 
than the top of the house where we sleep.' 

" * And what are you going to do there ? ' said 
the taper. 

" ' I am going to show the ships out at sea 
where the harbor is,' said the man. ' For we 



66 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

stand here at the entrance to the harbor, and 
some ships far out on the stormy sea may be 
looking for our light even now.' 

"'Alas! no ship could ever see my light,' 
said the little taper, < it is so very small.' 

" ' If your light is small,' said the man, < keep 
it burning bright, and leave the rest to me.' 

" Well, when the man got up to the top of 
the lighthouse, for this was a lighthouse they 
were in, he took the little taper, and with it 
lighted the great lamps that stood ready there 
with their polished reflectors behind them. 

" You who think your little light of so small 
account, can you not see what God may do with 
it? Shine — and leave the rest to Him." 



WAYSIDE SOWING AND REAPING. 61 



IX. 

WAYSIDE SOWING AND REAPING. 

The lessons of harvest, like the fruits of 
harvest, have lately been gathered. Both are 
good crops, although in different spheres. Let 
us believe in the doctrine of correspondences. 

It is a familiar saying that in order to reap 
we must sow. Wayside reaping will only come 
from wayside sowing. We must sow beside all 
waters, sow early and late, and believe that the 
results will be seen though it be after many 

days. 

Though seed lie buried long in dust, 
It sha'n't deceive our hope. 

I have lately met a few facts more personal 
than I could wish, illustrative of this law in 
the vineyard of life. 

Leaving the Bethany Union one day in the 
earlier autumn, I was obliged to wait for a car 
at Tremont Street. There is always something 
to see if you keep your eyes open. I chanced 
to observe a respectable and intelligent appear- 
ing, elderly gentleman, evidently the occupant 



68 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

of the house in front of which he stood, and 
who busied himself in giving the children as 
they passed, a few flowers, with some pleasant 
words. As I witnessed this wayside sowing 
and reaping of happiness, I bethought me of 
my own opportunity to scatter a seed of satis- 
faction in the heart of the old man himself. 
So I made bold to say, " Excuse me, sir, but it 
seems to me a most agreeable mission on your 
part to be giving the children the flowers as 
they pass ; and it ought to give }^ou as much 
happiness as it gives the recipients." "Yes," 
said he, " I know myself from a contrary expe- 
rience what a child may think of such atten- 
tions. I am now eighty-three years old, and 
I remember that when I was five years old I 
had given me by my mother my first pair of 
trousers. I donned them you may believe early 
in the morning, and I took my place out on the 
sidewalk, just as I am now giving flowers to the 
children, and said to myself, ' The man who lives 
next door, when he comes out to go to his 
store, will see me in my new trousers, and won't 
he be surprised, and say what a big boy I've 
come to be ! ' and I fed my heart on being seen 
in the new departure, always so interesting in 
a child's life. At length the neighbor emerged, 
came down the steps, passed by me as I stood 



WAYSIDE SOWING AND REAPING. 69 

with my hands in my pockets, and he never 
said a word, or even glanced at me ; and," said 
the old gentleman vehemently, " I hated that 
man till the day of his death, and remember it 
with bitterness even now, nearly eighty years 
after the event. And I am doing what I can 
to make other children happy, now that I am 
so old I can't do anything else." There was 
wayside sowing and wayside reaping, the past 
and the present, right out of the same heart. 
Eighty years before, an opportunity had been 
lost to sow a seed of joy in a child's life. The 
wayside sowing, whatever it is, will bring its 
return. 

I will be excused if I make it yet more per- 
sonal, for my experience is the experience of 
others. A few weeks ago I met a gentleman, 
unknown to ms, but who introduced himself by 
saying, "You once did me a kindness, which 
perhaps made no impression upon you, but it 
did on me. At the time, I was just recovering 
from a severe illness, and it was my first ven- 
ture into the open air. I had walked away all 
my strength, and, exhausted, boarded a street 
car full of passengers, and you promptly, and 
with a sympathetic recognition of the situation, 
gave me your seat. Not until ten years after- 
ward did I know who you were, but, seeing 



TO THINGS WISE AXD OTHERWISE. 

you on a public platform, I found out by mak- 
ing inquiry. I never see you without recalling 
your courtesy to me in my weakness." I knew 
nothing about the man, could not recall the 
circumstance, did nothing that others are not 
daily doing. It was a small matter, anyway, 
but it was a seed of wayside sowing from 
which I gathered the wayside blessing. 

Per contra, for I might as well open my 
heart a little wider in this, for me, quite un- 
usual way. I was joined one Sunday afternoon, 
as I came out from a funeral service, by a gen- 
tleman who surprised me by saying, t; I have 
had very hard feelings against you, sir, for a 
long time, and now I want to speak of it." I 
replied, " It seems impossible, as I cannot recall 
you to my mind, much less anything that could 
have caused hard feelings toward me on your 
part." " Well," he continued, " I am a con- 
ductor on the street car. And don't you re- 
member giving me, one day, a five-dollar bill, 
out of which to take a five-cent fare ? " The 
case seemed to break down in my memory, at 
the point of my having had the five dollars. 
But I owned up that such an event might have 
taken place. " 1 was greatly driven that day." 
said he, " tired out. and inwardly impatient. I 
stopped and changed the bill, but ever after, 



WAYSIDE SOWING AND REAPING. 71 

for some reason — perhaps the thought that you 
must have had some small change somewhere 
about you — I always had unpleasant feelings 
towards you. But when I heard the prayer at 
the funeral to-day I relented, and said if I had 
the opportunity I would make confession and 
ask forgiveness for my bad spirit." Here I 
had been, all unconsciously, sowing in that 
brother's heart a seed of disaffection. It may 
not have been so much in the act as something 
in my manner. Perhaps I did not appreciate 
the inconvenience to him. We were both just 
then doing a little wayside reaping from the 
wayside sowing. But that man and myself 
were fast friends ever after, and have, to this 
day, occasional interchanges as we ride together 
on a rail. 

May I go a little further while in this busi- 
ness, and turn my heart quite inside out? I 
have a clerical brother, one of our ablest minis- 
ters, for whom I have always had the greatest 
admiration and affection, who for a number of 
years, during an early, but I hope superficial, 
acquaintance, as he afterward informed me 
with commendable candor, thought that I, the 
least of all the saints, in fact hardly a saint at 
all, was the most conceited, egotistical, self- 
opinionated, puffed-up individual in all our 



72 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

ministry. I do not know really but what he 
was right, for a man wants to be great in some- 
thing, but I was fearfully sorry that he had 
found me out. I never felt that way about 
him, but thought, and still think, him big- 
hearted, generous and grand. I could not fall 
back even on Voltaire's celebrated mot, when 
he spoke in enthusiastic praise of a French 
savant, and was told that the man whose merits 
he extolled thought him (Voltaire) the greatest 
of all scoundrels. " Ah," said he, " very likely 
we are both mistaken ! " When a Chinese finds 
some one thinking unkindly of him, instead of 
turning upon the brother with reproaches, he 
turns upon himself, and inquires within, " What 
have I done, how have I borne myself toward 
this man, that he should get such an impression 
of me ? " And so he begins to examine and 
correct himself. Evidently there had been on 
my part some bad wayside sowing and reaping. 
It is to be hoped that our recent consecration 
meeting and common pledges may lead to 
greater carefulness in scattering abroad the 
seeds of love, fellowship and confidence. And 
even misunderstandings may be dissipated by 
openness and frankness, and by confessing our 
faults one to another. 

But a more delightful wayside reaping came 



WAYSIDE SOWING AND BE APING. 73 

to me not many months ago. At the close 
of a Sunday service a gentleman approached 
me, saying, " My name is Crawford, and I am 
from Newark, New Jersey. To-day is the an- 
niversary of the battle of Antietam. I was 
wounded in that battle, and brought afterward 
to my home in Newark, where you were at the 
time a pastor, and all through that hard and 
painful experience you visited me, and were 
frequent and constant as a sympathizing attend- 
ant ; and I have never forgotten it ; and being 
on a visit to my sister, who is here at church 
with me this morning, and who lives in a 
neighboring town, I have come here expressly, 
after these many years, to make my personal 
acknowledgments to you for your kindness in 
that time of distress." 

I could not recall a single circumstance of 
that obliterated experience. The man himself 
was a dim personality to my memory. I could 
not, by any effort, reconstruct his personality. 
But it was a great, as it was an unexpected, 
pleasure, to glean just a little in a field where 
I had unconsciously done some wayside sowing 
so many years ago. It is the only thing worth 
having in life. It is the harvest, in the experi- 
ence of the minister, that brings the most 
blessed results. 



74 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

I might as well now go the whole length in 
this vein, and add that a letter accidentally 
found by me the other day, while trying to 
verify a date, shows how we may sow and reap 
in the furrows of opportunity, and also how 
we may scatter seeds for reaping in distant 
places. The letter was sent me by J. Sargeant, 
chaplain of the 13 th Regiment of Vermont 
Volunteers, and is dated Camp Vermont, near 
Alexandria, Va., Nov. 18, 1862. It related to 
soldiers wounded or sick in a hospital which I 
was accustomed to visit. The chaplain may 
have been one of our own clergymen, I am in- 
clined to think he was ; and his letter shows 
what service may be rendered by a faithful in- 
cumbent of that office. He must have done 
much wayside sowing for others to reap. 

" I enclose," he writes, " five dollars for young 
McHerd, now in the hospital near you, from his 
mother. Please hand it to him, and say that 
his mother will send him more if he is obliged 
to stay there, and should he want anything, it 
will be furnished, if his friends at home can 
know of it. Now in regard to the furlough for 
him, will you be so kind as to go yourself, and 
if you think best take an influential citizen 
with you, and see the surgeon in charge of the 
hospital and state the case to him. McHerd 



WAYSIDE SOWING AND REAPING. 75 

has been a good soldier, has been in several 
battles, and has now been sick a long time, and 
with little prospect of soon returning to his regi- 
ment. He has a widowed mother, a comfortable 
home, and would be far more likely to recover 
there. I think you will be successful. I feel 
anxious about McHerd. I fear he will run 
down unless sent home. Tell him the book for 
his mother was never delivered to me. The man 
he left it with says it was destroyed in a great 
storm which blew down our tents and soaked 
everything with water. I hope that you and 
I may have the pleasure of meeting some time. 
I thank you again for your kindness to the Ver- 
mont young men. The greatest sufferers in our 
land at this time are found in our crowded 
hospitals." We never did meet, but the good 
seed makes pleasant reaping. 

What a wayside reaping was that for Dr. 
Patterson at the Convention, when Dr. Roblin 
told him in public of the words of welcome and 
encouragement he had given him when he came 
to live in Boston. It must have sounded in the 
ears of the veteran like the whisperings of the 
spirit through the ripened grain of life's harvest. 

These are instances of wayside gleaning 
which find their counterpart in every life that 
tries to improve opportunities for helping others. 



76 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

The fields are always white for such harvests. 
We may forget the wayside sowing, but in many 
ways soon or late will come back the satisfac- 
tion that we have not labored in vain. But I 
fear the personal character of this harvest-time 
recital will serve to justify my friend's earlier 
estimate of me as an egotist. Believe, dear 
reader, that like other vaunted and vain shows, 
it is for this day only. 



MINISTERS AND NOT MINISTERS. 11 



MINISTERS AND NOT MINISTERS. 

The unveiling of a bust of Emerson in the 
Second Unitarian Church in Boston, at the re- 
cent celebration of its two hundred and fiftieth 
anniversary, suggests a number of distinguished 
men in literature who had very intimate associ- 
ations with the ministry and made narrow 
escapes. 

Emerson himself in early life was the pastor 
of the church that paid tribute to his memory. 
It was his only settlement, lasting three years. 
There were many ministers in his ancestry, on 
the paternal line, and it was not without re- 
presentatives on the maternal side. He was 
ordained to the ministry by the blood, and was 
never able to cast off the preaching instinct. 
Henry Drummond, not technically a preacher, 
yet one by habit and influence, acknowledges 
great indebtedness to Emerson as his religious 
teacher. In the last generation, he had many 
imitators in the pulpit, both in manner and 
matter. The sage of Concord, professionally out 



78 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

of the ministry, was nevertheless in the larger 
ministry which makes regnant ethical and 
spiritual truths. His ministerial ancestry in 
fact, though not in form, held him to the same 
general line of influence. He recognizes this 
inward consecration. " Though nature appears 
capricious, some qualities she carefully fixes 
and transmits, but some, and those the finer, she 
exhales with the breath of the individual, as too 
costly to perpetuate. But I notice also that 
they may become fixed and permanent in any 
stock, by painting and repainting them on every 
individual, until at last nature adopts them and 
bakes them in her porcelain." 

Emerson came into the ministry by a divine 
call, through natural descent, and he did not 
really escape from it by retreating from the 
pulpit. Literature and the platform became the 
opportunity for religious teaching. He was 
the preacher of preachers, as Browning is the 
poet of poets. 

His reasons for leaving the minis try do not 
seem adequate in the light of to-day, whatever 
different environment may have influenced him 
in 1834. He resigned his pastorate rather than 
pray or administer the communion in public. 
At the present time the philosophy of prayer, 
and the Lord's Supper, might be found broad 



MINISTERS AND NOT MINISTERS. 79 

md elastic enough to satisfy the conscience even 
)f Emerson and his parish. It is to be regretted 
hat the church, even to-day, sacrifices great 
ninds to ceremonialism as well as to dogma. 
Abel C. Thomas, one of our own early clergy- 
men, who had belonged to the Society of 
friends, and was traditionally opposed to forms, 
nevertheless held to his ministry, calling in 
others to administer the communion. 

It was significant that at the unveiling of 
Emerson's bust, there was a liturgical service, 
a Maltese cross, displayed with the motto, 
| Truth, Worship and Service," the public use 
of the Lord's Prayer, and the reading of selec- 
tions from Emerson on Worship and Spiritual 
Law. And the communion is regularly ob- 
served by the church. The question arises, 
Could Emerson have stayed in the ministry, with 
reasonable interpretations, and if so, could he 
have accomplished the great work of his life? 
Who can measure the ways of the spirit ? 

Edward Everett is another notable instance. 
He began his career as a clergyman, and was 
pastor of the Brattle Street Church in Boston. 
His father was a minister. Unlike Emerson, 
he had a remarkable gift of speech, and made 
at once a deep impression from the pulpit. He 
published a work entitled, " Defence of Chris- 



80 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

tianity." It was of him that a reporter said he 
made the most eloquent prayer ever offered to 
a Boston audience. But notwithstanding this 
splendid promise of a career in the ministry, in 
which he might have filled the world with his 
fame, he left it upon the temptation of a pro- 
fessorship in Harvard College, of which in due 
time he became the president. In his career he 
was educator, author, statesman, patriot, and 
orator. While his public course did not lie so 
near the line of religion as Emerson's, he con- 
tinued a preacher of highest manhood and pub- 
lic service. His literary labors were abundant, 
and his discourses are famous. I heard his ora- 
tion on Washington, given one hundred and 
fifty times for the purchase of Mt. Yernon. I 
was enraptured by its power and its elegance of 
diction and manner. He seemed, as I gazed 
entranced, to be enveloped in an aureole, and I 
had a new conception of how Jesus, as he prayed 
and discoursed, might have been transfigured to 
the vision of the disciples on the Mount. What 
a power would that eloquence have been if con- 
tinued in the ministry ! Could not the pulpit, 
also, have been a mighty throne of inspiration 
and influence ? Think of what luster Bossuet, 
Bourdaloue, Fenelon, Massillon, and Saurin 
shed upon the ministry in France ; Knox, Ers- 



MINISTERS AND NOT MINISTERS. 81 

kine, Chalmers, and Irving in Scotland; Latimer, 
Baxter, Bunyan, Barrow, Wesley, and Whitefield 
in England, and the illustrious names that adorn 
the annals of America, and the ministry will be 
seen to be a sphere of influence that might well 
have commanded the superb gifts of Edward 
Everett. 

But we still see, as in the case of Emerson, 
the irregular cropping out of the ministerial 
temper in his son, William Everett, educator, 
politician, wit, and at uncertain intervals preach- 
er, by license of the Boston Unitarian Asso- 
ciation. It is hard to kill the ministerial 
instinct. " The gift of genius is never to be 
reckoned upon beforehand, any more than a 
choice variety of pear or peach in a seedling ; 
it is always a surprise, but it is born with great 
advantages when the stock from which it 
springs has been long under cultivation." 

Thomas Wentworth Higginson is also a 
well-known example of passing through the 
ministry into the literary realm. He was grad- 
uated at the Harvard Divinity School, and 
preached at Newburyport and Worcester. He 
combines literary tastes, intellectual power and 
oratorical gifts. Had he continued in the min- 
istry, he would have honored it by large 
fruitage. But he retired from the pulpit in 



82 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

1856, and has ever since been known in social, 
political and religious reform. His adherence 
to abolitionism was a prominent reason for his 
forsaking the ministry. He has been a radical 
in religion, and had he remained in the clerical 
profession would probably have shared the fate 
of Theodore Parker in being denounced a here- 
tic. He is or has been president of the Free 
Religious Association. His life work, how- 
ever, has lain within the larger sphere of re- 
ligion, promoting philanthropy, freedom, the 
progress of woman, and educational reform. 
His literary and historical work has taken 
high rank. His pen and voice have been in 
constant service for the advancement of man- 
kind. He has really never ceased to be a 
preacher, in the larger use of that word, which 
is becoming common in this age, and which 
more and more obliterates the lines between 
laymen and clergymen. Many years ago he 
pnblished a book entitled " The Sympathy of 
Religions," a recognition of elemental truths 
underlying all the faiths of mankind. It was an 
anticipation of the World's Parliament of Reli- 
gions. Col. Higginson did not escape the freer 
scope of religion by severing his formal connec- 
tion with the ministry. Several of our best 
hymns are from his pen. The one beginning — 



MINISTERS AND NOT MINISTERS. 83 

" To Thine eternal arms, O God, 
Take us, Thine erring children, in!" 

belongs to him. His is another instance of a 
nature overflowing formal limitations and es- 
caping into other, but not different, channels. 
Fortunate would it have been, had he retained a 
ministry which might also have been fruitful in 
these other fields. 

Fortunately, we are able to place alongside 
of Higginson the career of Edward Everett 
Hale, who has just closed a long and honored 
pastorate in Boston, and who has been no less 
faithful as a minister by being also philan- 
thropist, journalist, novelist, historian, re- 
former, public citizen. While distinguished for 
services in many fields, he has made them all 
tributary to the central purpose of his life, to 
preach the Gospel of glad tidings to the world. 
He has known how to proportion and centralize 
his labors. A like example, but with less 
variety of labors, is the ministry of Dr. Storrs, 
who has just resigned a pastorate of fifty-three 
years in Brooklyn; and of Horace Bushnell, 
whose memory is renewed to this generation of 
ministers in a new biography by Dr. Munger. 
These men display statesmanship, philosophy, 
political sagacity, social economy, as well as 
theology, and prove that it is not necessary for 



84 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

all great men to leave the ministry in order to 
have illustrious careers. Dr. Storrs said in his 
letter of resignation, " If to-day were offered to 
me the choice of a pathway in life the most al- 
luring and rewarding, I should choose none 
other than that which has been given me — the 
pathway of a Christian pastor, joyfully to bring 
to men the grace and glory of the Lord's Gos- 
pel." Emerson, also, while he felt himself 
crowded out of the pulpit, never lost his rever- 
ence for Christian teaching. Dr. Holmes says, 
"Emerson recognizes two inestimable advan- 
tages as the gift of Christianity : first, the 
Sabbath — hardly a Christian institution — and 
secondly, the institution of preaching. He 
spoke — not with hard or bitter words, not with 
sarcasm or levity, rather as one who felt himself 
charged with a message from the same divinity 
who had inspired the prophets and evangelists 
of old with whatever truth was in their 
messages." 

John Adams may also be referred to as an 
illustration, for he abandoned the idea of being 
a minister, turned back, he said, by the fright- 
ful engines of ecclesiastical councils, of diabolical 
malice and Calvinistic temper, of the operation 
of which he had been a witness in some church 
controversies in Braintree, and which had ter- 



MINISTERS AND NOT MINISTERS. 85 

rified him out of it. He was not so "terrified," 
however, as not to marry Abigail Smith, the 
daughter of a neighboring minister. Love was 
stronger than Calvinistic logic, as it has been 
many times since, both in the sentiments and 
in theology. Had John Adams turned to the 
ministry instead of the law, what would have 
been the effect on the destiny of the American 
Colonies ? 

We find, so far as I know, no other clerical 
fibers in the famous Adams family, nor among 
the equally famous Quincy family, representa- 
tives of both which survive in the present 
generation. 

But this ministerial deficiency is more than 
made up by the clerical stock of the Beechers, 
the progeny of Lyman Beecher, himself a stal- 
wart in theology. Even the daughters were 
practically preachers. Henry Ward Beecher 
was a prodigious force in the thought and life 
of America. Who can imagine that his power 
would have been increased had he imitated 
Emerson, Everett, Higginson and others, and 
abandoned the ministry for other fields of labor ? 
Harriet Beecher Stowe was ordained by God an 
apostle of truth and freedom. Lincoln said to 
her, " And is this the little woman who made 
the great war that liberated the slave ?" 



86 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

But space will not permit me to write of 
Coleridge, the son of a clergyman, who began 
as a minister, and passed to literature and phi- 
losophy ; of Renan, a student for the priesthood 
in Paris, who in great agony of soul sank into 
religious despair, but a preacher notwithstand- 
ing, writing to his sister, "God forbid that I 
should say that Christianity is false. This word 
would denote great limitation of mind ; false- 
hood does not produce such beautiful fruits." 
Of Ruskin also, in effect a herald of religious 
truth. He chanced one morning into a church in 
Turin, where, as he said, a little squeaking idiot 
was preaching to an audience of seventeen old 
women and three louts, that they were the only 
children of God in Turin ; and that all the 
people outside the chapel and all the world out- 
side of Monte Viso would be damned ; and he 
says he came out of that chapel a conclusively 
unconverted man. No wonder that Washing- 
ton Irving refused to hear such decrees in the 
pulpit, saying, " I'll be damned if I don't go to 
church, and I'll be d if I do go." 

We may be thankful now that the ministry 
is large enough for large souls, and that the 
workers for God, humanity, freedom, philan- 
thropy, reform and truth are of the true ordi- 
nation of the spirit. God fulfills himself in 
many ways. 



'AN' THE VILLAIN, HE GOT SHOT." 87 



XL 



a 



AN THE VILLAIN, HE GOT SHOT. 



From directly behind me in the street came 
these words. They sounded somewhat tragi- 
cal to a timid listener. Turning suddenly to 
find their source, I discovered following me two 
urchins about eight years old, and evidently 
belonging to the hoodlum variety. The words 
I had caught were a fragment of an earnest con- 
versation between the gamins,, one of whom, 
from the general trend, was pouring into the ear 
of the other an account of what he had seen in 
a play-house, during which the tragedy, indicated 
in the title of the article, had occurred. 

The relator seemed to be deeply impressed 
with the> fitting ethical outcome of the theatrical 
situation. It was undoubtedly, to his mind, a 
justifiable consummation of the plot he had 
witnessed, that the villain of the performance 
had met &> deserved and dreadful fate. His 
whole manlier indicated concurrence with the 
just result. Jhat the villain got shot satisfied 
his sense of the mora l proprieties. It agreed 



88 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

with his inborn ethical consciousness. " God 
hath made all hearts alike." 

The incident started in my mind a train of 
reflections. Was not the boy's expression a 
revelation of an underlying stratum of moral 
judgment innate in human beings ? Might it 
not be taken as an indication of the consensus 
of mankind touching the fatalities of wrong- 
doing ? Is it not true of the great play on the 
stage of life that the villain in some way, soon 
or late, meets his just deserts ? The laws of 
God are constructed in that way, so that meta- 
phorically speaking, if not, as indeed is often 
the case, literally speaking, the villain in the 
game of iniquity gets what he gives. " The 
divine power," says an historian, " pursued 
the slayers of Caesar over sea and land, and 
rested not until there was not a man left, either 
of those who dipped their hands in his blood, 
or of those who gave their sanction to the deed." 
To do a wrong act is to arm against the doer 
the passions which his action invokes. A boom 
is liable to become a boomerang. For this rea- 
son, and for other reasons, our declaration of 
principles lays down as its fourth particular, the 
" certainty of just retribution for sin." There's 
nothing walks with aimless feet. 

It would appear from the remark of this 



"AN* THE VILLAIN, HE GOT SHOT." 89 

incipient theatrical critic of the sidewalk, that 
there is an instinctive recognition of fair deal- 
ing and penal forces by the unsophisticated 
mind ; and that deep down in even the uncul- 
tured children of the slums, are ethical qualities 
which spontaneously detect the workings of 
God-appointed forces for the overthrow of evil. 
That the villain should get what he deserved 
seemed to be a necessary requirement of the 
moral order under which the urchin lived. He 
did not, to be sure, formulate it in this way, it 
was not a matter that he had reasoned out, it 
was not the theological or philosophical evolu- 
tion of a principle, but a natural and spon- 
taneous approval of the fact that a transgressor 
had met a logical end. The child's face was 
dirty, his hands begrimed, his clothes tattered, 
his hat seedy, but these outward accidents could 
not obliterate the innate discrimination between 
the noble and the ignoble in character and con- 
duct, or extinguish his approval of a just, and 
as it would almost seem, inevitable result of an 
evil course. 

And this fact is a vindication of the doctrine 
of the essential rectitude of human nature. It 
is not till the speculations of later years, till 
the schemes of atonement and salvation, the 
supposed suspension in the present of the oper- 



90 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

ation of God's laws, are forced upon the mind, 
that this early recognition of just and honorable 
principles is overlaid and smothered. Put this 
street gamin in a Sunday school, where he will 
be taught, if the teacher is faithful, that in 
some mysterious way he is involved in the sin 
of our first parents, that his native instincts are 
totally depraved, that a substitute has been 
provided that he may escape the consequences 
of wrong-doing; that there is no certainty of 
retribution in this world or indeed in any other, 
— it all hanging on conditions that may disjoint 
at any time the operations of ethical forces, — 
and this natural, unstudied condemnation of the 
villain who gets shot will lose its way in the 
mazes of " substituted righteousness '' and a 
possible escape of punishment in the far-distant 
assizes of eternity. 

If any one doubts this, let him rectify his 
moral perspective by perusing Emerson's essay 
on " Compensation." It was written to confute 
this notion, of an arbitrary, mechanical opera- 
tion of punitive forces ; to establish the idea, 
now largely recognized, that to commit sin, as 
the word denotes, is to miss the mark; that 
moral consequences are wrapped up in moral 
situations and relations ; and that wrong-doing, 
whether visible to us or not, works destruction 



"AN' THE VILLAIN, RE GOT SHOT." 91 

to the wrong-doer. The urchin, whose words 
I caught, had perceived this, and with natural 
eloquence was pouring it into the open mind of 
his comrade. And his sense of honor and right, 
his judgment of the course of human events, 
was evidently appeased by the fact that the 
villain of the footlights was thwarted in his 
evil design. " The heart," says Neander, " is 
the best theologian." 

This same verdict of the street, I observe 
when I attend the theater, finds confirmation 
in the intelligent, fashionable audiences witness- 
ing the performances. There is much said, 
and justly said, no doubt, about the superficial- 
ity, and want of correct tone, in present theat- 
rical exhibitions. But certainly in my observa- 
tion of the histrionic art, I have never known 
the attendants to become enthusiastic over low 
types of character, or the success of rascalities, 
or the ways of the hypocrite, the seducer, the 
embezzler, the murderer. They have always, 
so far as my observation goes, reserved their 
applause for the justification of the weak, the 
tempted, the injured, and showed unmistakably 
their disapprobation of wrong, impurity, and 
intrigue. The unspoiled instinct of the mind 
is unerring. The storm of applause shakes the 
temple of Thespis when an outrage is punished, 



92 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

and when virtue is vindicated. In short, the 
orchestra seats are on the same high, moral 
level of my little preacher of the pavement, and 
are glad when " the villain, he gets shot." I 
have been inspired with new faith in the recti- 
tude of the moral judgment of mankind, when, 
after the strain of silence and delay, and when 
the spectator has passed through the intricacies 
of the plot, he has sanctioned the culmination 
of justice and the vindication of the innocent. 
The sentiment was so plainly on the right side, 
that faith in humanity has received a pleasing 
reinforcement. 

These reflections by no means imply that 
every villain is literally shot. Although there 
are many startling instances in history which 
show how retributive results return in kind. 
Identical sins come home to roost. When the 
captors of Adonibezek cut off his thumbs and 
great toes, he lamented that he had served 
threescore and ten kings, who gathered their 
meat under his table, in a like manner. " As 
some eagle," says Trench, " is pierced with a 
shaft feathered with his own wing, so many a 
sufferer cannot deny that it was his own sin 
that fledged the arrow of God's judgment which 
brought him down." The assassin who shoots 
is liable to get shot. Society feuds abundantly 
sustain this. 



"AN 1 THE VILLAIN, HE GOT SHOT.'" 93 

But whether, in reality, the scene at the 
hoodlum's theater be frequently enacted or not, 
the broad principle remains that the operations 
of physical, mental, domestic and social laws 
will weaken the character of the transgressor 
and trap him in his evil deeds. 

This is part of the certain retribution of the 
Universalist faith. It is found recorded in the 
great literatures of the world, as in Shake- 
speare's " Macbeth " and Hawthorne's " Scarlet 
Letter." It requires neither the crack of the 
pistol nor the crack of doom. The villain gets 
shot, and the law of God by some infallible 
finger pulls the trigger. 



94 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 



XII. 

THE NEW RELIGION. 

As the intellectual view of religion becomes 
different, it is seen to exert an influence upon 
its outward administration. John Adams said 
that God created man in his own image, and 
man returned the compliment, and created God 
in his image. There can be no doubt at least, 
that religious thought colors the view we take 
of duty, service and the world. We already see 
the influence of the new views. We no more 
have a new charity, a new education, a new 
science, than we have a new religion. The 
twentieth century will see farther progress in 
the direction of this initial movement. It will 
be marked by several particulars. 

1. It will take more account of the present 
world. Other-worldliness, as Coleridge called 
it, will not be so predominant. It will have a 
confident and comfortable assurance of immor- 
tality, but the stress and strain will not be upon 
a future existence, but upon the importance of 
getting more of heaven into the affairs of the 



THE NEW RELIGION. 95 

earth. Thy kingdom come, will be its aspiration. 
To replace evil with good, to improve human 
conditions, to unite mankind in love and ser- 
vice, will be the prevailing motives, rather than 
the old incentive, which made it the chief object 
to escape from hell and fly to heaven. 

The planet on which we live will be held as 
the gift of the Father for the development of 
character, for enjoyment and for helping each 
other. 

" This world is full of beauty, 

As other worlds above ; 
And did we do our duty, 
It would be full of love." 

This view of the value of the present life is 
reflected from many directions. Mr. Stoddard, 
the popular lecturer, in his pictorial work, " The 
Art Series," relates the following incident illus- 
trative of this change in the value of the world 
from an unlooked-for source : Some years ago, 
in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, a gentle- 
man encountered a French priest, his locks com- 
pletely white with age, traveling apparently for 
pleasure. Astonished at the sight, he ventured 
to inquire what had induced him at his time of 
life to go so far from home. " 'Tis very easily ex- 
plained," replied the priest. " Six months ago I 
was apparently about to die. One night I 



96 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

dreamed that I was already in God's presence, 
and that He spoke to me these words : < My child, 
how did you like the beautiful world I gave you 
to dwell in ? ' I answered nothing ; in fact, I was 
too mortified to answer. For, think of it! I, 
who had preached for fifty years continually of 
a better world, had never examined this at all. 
Awaking from my dream, I made a vow to God 
that if He gave me back my health I would de- 
vote some months at least to seeing and admir- 
ing His works. So here I am, making a tour of 
the world." It was the voice of the new reli- 
gion revealing the value of the present life. The 
emphasis is changing. The present generation 
of young people is feeling it, and setting a 
higher mark on terrestrial good. 

2. The New Religion will take account of 
more relationships. It will stretch religion over 
wider interests. Man's relation to God it has 
always rightly, though by wrong conceptions, 
recognized. It is now taking in, in ever broad- 
ening ways, man's relation to man. It makes 
more account of philanthropy, of penology, of 
citizenship, of sociology, of international rela- 
tions, duties and opportunities. It blots out 
the old distinction of sacred and profane. 
Everything that concerns the welfare of man- 
kind, in any sphere, falls under the authority of 



THE NEW RELIGION. 97 

religion. The Ten Commandments are not an 
"iridescent dream." The Sermon on the Mount 
is intended, in its broad principles, to apply to 
present human conditions. All days in the 
week come under the dominion of moral prin- 
ciples. Historic places attest the providence of 
God. No longer can it be said " religion is re- 
ligion, and business is business." When the 
Prince, who was also a bishop, lost his temper 
and swore, he explained to his valet, who over- 
heard him, that he did not swear as a bishop, 
but as a prince, whereupon his valet remarked — 
"When the Almighty damns the prince, what 
then will become of the bishop? " The Christian 
man must be the good citizen, politician, neigh- 
bor, trader, mechanic, husband and father, as 
well as the good churchman. These broad and 
varied relations of life will be recognized in this 
dawning administration of Christian principles. 
It was interesting to see these applications of 
religion in the congress at Lynn. 

And it will go even beyond the human re- 
lations. The new religion will take notice of 
man's relation to the lower orders of life. The 
rights of animals, as well as the rights of men 
and women and the rights of nations, will find 
wider consideration. The saying that no man's 
religion is good for anything, whose dog and 



98 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

cat are not the better for it, will have a higher 
appeal. When the young scion of the family 
came back from school, his father asked the 
servant if she had seen him : she replied, no, 
but she knew he was at home, because the cat 
was hiding under the stove. Christianity will 
come to administer love in wider relations, 
until it includes in its benefactions every living 
thing. It will grow to be more merciful even 
in needful exterminations. This is already to be 
seen in the bands of mercy, in protective laws 
for animals, and in publications giving instruc- 
tions in this wide practical field of religion. 
Who can doubt that all these relationships of 
mankind have been extended by the coming in 
of the better principles of the new Christian 
faith ? The present generation of young people 
will have a fine opportunity to enlarge the 
boundaries of harmony and helpfulness in the 
world. 

3. The New Religion will be comprehensive 
of more faculties in human nature. If hitherto 
it has exhausted itself in considering religious 
elements, and so narrowed and cramped the 
individual, it will come to claim as its own the 
whole range of his God-given nature, soul, body, 
and spirit, social, intellectual, and domestic. 
Whatever power he has was given by the 



THE NEW RELIGION. 99 

Creator, and he is under obligation by virtue 
of its possibilities and opportunities to render 
what it can to the common good. It includes 
the faculties exercised in pleasure as well as 
those exercised in piety. It embraces health 
and holiness, and sees in them alike the same 
root of life. It will develop humanity as a 
whole, and recognize the temple erected out of 
all its columns, and crowned by its dome of 
faith and hope, as the temple of the living God. 
It will no longer be lop-sided or top-heavy. 
The religious man will be a man all over and 
through and through, and no longer, as Mrs. 
Browning says, an air-fed, impassioned ghost. 

4. The New Religion will have more variety 
in its sources of enjoyment. What have been 
known as the strict religious exercises and ac- 
tivities are found to be too contracted. There 
are more keys to be struck in the organ of life. 
Many avenues of innocent enjoyment and en- 
terprise have been closed by the prejudices of 
mankind. The ban of religion is being re- 
moved from many bigoted prohibitions. They 
have led to morbid religious searchings and to 
a spiritual sensitiveness that have taken away 
the freedom and spontaneousness of service. 
A certain eminent neurologist, who had had 
large experience with over-moralized and super- 

LofC. 



100 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

sensitive patients, said, " I can get along better 
with anything else than that d New Eng- 
land conscience." Christian service must mean 
a broad religions principle in the mind, acting 
freely, and not tormenting itself by fear of 
being too happy in the legitimate exercise of 
all the powers of soul and body. Nature, so- 
ciety, amusement, art, music, the drama, wealth, 
may, if properly regulated and balanced, serve 
as the handmaids of religion, yea, are religion 
so far as they are guided by its principles and 
purposes. They harmonize, if wisely held, with 
the duties, exercises and privileges that are too 
commonly regarded as embracing the whole 
duty of man. It is for the youth of our day 
to set an example of making all sources of 
healthful happiness a part of religion, to recog- 
nize their legitimacy, and hold them in a proper 
solution so as to enrich the elixir of life. 

5. The New Religion is practicing a greater 
elasticity in the realm of the emotions. It spon- 
taneously exhibits novel methods in praise and 
prayer, and in expressing its earnestness and 
loyalty. And this is right and commendable. 
Why are not banners and mottoes for the eye 
as good as the old-fashioned " Amen," " Halle- 
lujah," and " Glory to God " for the ear? This 
is an age of " object lessons." They grow out 



THE NEW RELIGION . 101 

of a new faith that is natural and reasonable. 
It is the fervor of exuberant feelings. It is the 
blossom time of the soul, and leads onward to 
the season of fruit. It finds rallying centers 
and bonds of union. It recognizes religion as 
free, expressive and expansive. It is working 
and worshiping in its Father's house, and why 
should not the new faith make its adherents 
not slaves but the children of light ? If children, 
then heirs of God, and joint heirs with Jesus 
Christ. 

A celebrated musical composer was asked 
why his productions were full of exaltation. 
He replied, "When I think upon God, the 
notes leap and dance in my mind and roll from 
my fingers in melodies of light and life." So 
the New Religion should drive away the old- 
time gloom, and clothe all thought and service 
in the new-time glory. 

It would seem irreverent to a former concep- 
tion of religion to see, what I observed at the 
Lynn Convention, two young persons, in the 
act of singing, stopping to exchange cheerful 
remarks that rippled away in laughter, and then 
in the same gay spirit pursuing the song of 
praise ; or to witness a member, while passing 
jauntily down the aisle, catching up the senti- 
ment of a hymn, and joining with the great 



102 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

throng, for an instant, in a snatch of " praise 
and thanksgiving." But why should it seem 
inappropriate? Hearts were full of gratitude, 
of the joy of life, and social good cheer, and, 
mingling in the same soul, found expression, 
first towards God and then towards each other. 
It was not thought to be irreligious in revival 
times for songs and hymns to mingle with 
groans and lamentations, for the body under 
hysterical excitement to become rigid, and the 
eyes to become set as in a trance. Why, in 
this more enlightened and cheerful age, should 
it be deemed irreverent to blend the spirit of 
joy, of friendship, and social delight, with the 
exercises of religion? The new faith knows 
how to express itself in accordance with its own 
genius, and repudiates the bondage of ancient 
servitude and gloom. Does God exact of the 
birds that sing in the summer trees, that their 
demeanor shall be set and stiff and sober, when 
they send out their trills upon the morning air ? 
Witness the hopping about in the branches, the 
gay turning of the head, the light flutter of the 
wing, the joy and gladness of every glance and 
motion. When St. Francis was preaching in 
the woods, the birds, apparently hearing his 
words, began their singing ; but instead of re- 
buking, he addressed them, as if they were 



THE NEW RELIGION. 103 

intelligent beings, and took delight in their 
innocent interruptions. Shall not the children 
of God by the Spirit, the youthful souls whom 
he has created, sing his praises with delightful 
emotions, and enjoy each other, while uplifted 
with the thoughts of his love ? And, if all un- 
conscious like the birds, the more to his honor 
and glory. And so the New Religion will take 
into its strong, fresh life, all that is good and 
generous and true. 



104 THINGS WISE AXD OTHEBWISE. 



XIII. 



A so:* of the Emerald Isle, attending a wed- 
ding, conducted on a free and easy plan, observ- 
ing an attendant who was bearing himself in 
an officious manner, accosted him abruptly 
with the demand, "Who are you, anyway?" 
and received for reply, " Sure, and I'm the best 
man/' His interrogator not being well informed 
as to the technicalities of such occasions, bristled 
up in defiance, remarking with a vehemence 
more pronounced than polite, " You claim to 
be the best man, let's see you prove it ! " and 
squaring off, he proceeded to give a physical 
demonstration as to the truth of the arrogant 
pretension. The contest, however, substantiated 
the assertion of the claimant, obliging the 
assailant to confess, that instead of the best 
man, he was, in fact, to be registered as second- 
class male matter. 

The wisdom of this " social function is in 
its application. If the reader will be at the 
pains to consult the calendar of occasions at the 



" THE BEST MAN." 105 

head of the church news in a journal, he will 
discover a long list of denominational organiza- 
tions, which are soon to hold their annual meet- 
ings. The demand is often made that the 
" best man " be chosen delegate, to represent 
the local body in such meetings. If he should 
be appointed, it is quite sure that he would not 
be treated by the conventions as the best man 
was at the aforesaid wedding. On the con- 
trary, he would be most heartily greeted and 
welcomed. 

We would not for a moment imply that the 
best man is not already often found a member of 
our ecclesiastical organizations, but the constant 
cry is for more of them. We want our con- 
ventions to be composed in a larger measure, 
— not, of course, wholly, — of experienced, 
practical, level-headed laymen, who are accus- 
tomed not only to look after their own tem- 
poral concerns, and the religious and secular 
interests of their local churches, but who are 
interested in the administrations of our larger 
organizations. We too often experience a lack 
of business ability in the management of the 
financial interests of our representative bodies. 

We know how essential it is that the women 
of our churches should bear, as happily they 
now do, a large part in denominational affairs. 



106 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

They are active workers in the parishes, in 
these days are accustomed to take part in 
deliberative bodies, and are official members of 
organizations devoted to churches, reforms, and 
religion. They are endowed with good judg- 
ment and practical administrative talents. But 
so large a part of the burden of denominational 
legislation should not be thrown upon their 
shoulders. The substantial, experienced men 
of the churches should do their share. " Male 
and female created He them." The too com- 
mon idea with some persons that the work of 
the church belongs altogether to women, should 
be corrected. A gentleman inquired if a cer- 
tain man had religion, and received for reply, 
" I don't think he has any, but if he has, it is 
in his wife's name." Let there be a recognized 
co-partnership of men and women in the work 
of the church. Religion ought to adopt for its 
motto the words of the advertisements, — " Take 
no substitutes." The " silent partner " business 
has its limitations. 

It is very true, also, that some women are 
more serviceable in our conventions than some 
men. We hear a good deal in labor circles 
about the "walking delegate." In religious 
circles he can be matched by the talking dele- 
gate, who is invariably of the male persuasion. 



« THE BEST MAN." 107 

He has few ideas, but many words ; his watery 
3h c usiveness imparts a dropsical character to 
every subject, and his irrelevant arguments are 
a weariness to both flesh and spirit. He is 
" inebriated with the exuberance of his own 
verbosity," calling to mind the disciple of the 
Thespian art who complained to a critic that he 
was never mentioned in his theatrical notices. 
"And are you an actor?" was the astonished 
question of the critic. " I am that," he re- 
turned, " and one of the best in my line." 
"And what line is that, if you please?" 
"Well," said the aspirant for dramatic honors, 
" you know what a rattlety-bang there is when 
a fellow is supposed to fall down stairs?" 
" Yes." " Well, I'm the man what works that 
machine." 

There is not a so-called deliberative body in 
the world without the member who furnishes 
the noise of the rattlety-bang machine. Be- 
cause a delegate is endowed with bifurcated 
garments, he is not of necessity the most useful 
member. The best man may not take frequent 
part in discussion, but be valuable on important 
committees and in direct personal influence and 
example, and his vote is sure to be cast on the 
right side of fundamental questions. He may 
be a man of business, or a mechanic, or belong 



108 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

to the professions, but he will exert the power 
that goes with wisdom and character. If, in 
addition to these requisites, he has also the 
gift of speech, we may be sure it will be judi- 
ciously used. 

Our denominational bodies would be helped 
by the presence of more such men. The plea, 
so often heard from them, that they cannot be 
spared from business, is, in many cases, not 
valid. There are busy men, here and there, 
who do find time and opportunity to become 
active and interested members of our con- 
ventions. They arrange their affairs so as to 
be away at that time. And perhaps the men 
who cannot be absent might find out that busi- 
ness would go along just as well, and perhaps a 
little better, without them. Additional care 
thrown upon some one else for a few days 
might prove to be good training for a partner 
or subordinate. 

I knew a gentleman whose hands were full 
of affairs, who was at last driven by broken 
health to take a year's absence in Europe, and 
when he returned with renewed strength he 
remarked. " Well, I've learned one thing since 
I've been gone ; I'm not of as much consequence 
as I thought I was ; they've done more business 
and made more money without me than they 



" THE BEST MAN." 109 

ver did with me." This sort of excuse, in 
some instances, is a form of morbid egotism or 
commercial monotony. It would be a benefit 
to many men to break away from it and get to 
acting, if only for a few days, on new lines, 
and in a different social and sympathetic 
atmosphere. 

And the reasons given not infrequently in- 
volve gross inconsistencies. Our best man, who 
finds it absolutely impossible to leave the count- 
ing-room, to devote forty-eight hours to his 
denomination, makes out to appropriate a 
portion of his days, we may well believe, to 
political conventions, to fraternal assemblages, 
to trade exchanges, to commercial and mechani- 
cal organizations, which consume no little time, 
and take him from one end of the country to 
the other. If his services are required for the 
manipulation of a political party, to boom a 
candidate, to became a member of the Legisla- 
ture or Congress, he is found in many cases to 
be ready with the motto of a well-known char- 
acter in fiction, " Barkis is willin' ; " or at least, 
"while he does not seek the position, if it 
should be thrust upon him, he would leave 
himself in the hands of his friends," or words 
to that effect. Or if he wants to be absent 
from the business that can never spare him to 



110 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

attend a convention, to take a trip for recrea- 
tion, or have a summer outing, or attend excit- 
ing sports, the difficulties, in many instances, 
are found not to be altogether insurmountable. 
I fear the difference is in the personal interest 
taken in the respective objects. A Southern 
slave of the old times, replied to one who said, 
" I hope your master has gone to heaven," with 
the remark, " I 'se afraid he has not gone dar, 
for I never heard him speak of dat. When he 
goes to de Norf ' or to Virginny Springs he alius 
be gittin' ready fur weeks. I never see him 
gittin' ready fur goin' to heben." The reason 
our so-called best man is not at conventions is, 
that he is getting ready to go everywhere else, 
and forgets to pay any attention whatever to 
the claims of his church. His excuses are pre- 
texts, and he could go if he really wanted to. 

Washington wrote to Benjamin Harrison, 
Speaker of the House of Delegates in Virginia, 
" As there can be no harm in a pious wish for 
the good of one's country, I shall offer it as 
mine that each State will not only choose but 
compel its ablest men to attend Congress." 
We are as helpless as to conventions as Wash- 
ington was as to Congress. But we can be 
thankful for the ability and fidelity we now 
have — and it is no little. We can observe 



" THE BEST MAN." 111 

other churches, and if they have more of their 
able men — statesmen, financiers, scholars — in 
their religious bodies than we, let us imitate 
their example, and, at all events, begin the 
work of training our people, as a whole, into 
appreciation of their obligations to the general 
church. And this work of denominational 
education includes both the young and old, 
men and women. When an editor's eye fell 
upon the item, "The census of the United 
States embraces 20,000,000 women," he ex- 
claimed rapturously, " Who wouldn't be a cen- 
sus ! " Our conventions take pride in embracing 
their consecrated Christian women, but let 
them be matched by the ability and loyalty of 
our best men. And that will be a match made 
in heaven. 



112 TEIXGS WISE AXD OTHERWISE. 



XIV. 

GENUIXE USTYEHSALIST PROFAHTTY AT LAST. 

It is a very strange circumstance that the 
famous municipal contest in Greater New York 
has incidentally thrown to the surface the only 
instance of profane language that ever harmo- 
nized with the principles of the Universalist 
faith. 

Moreover, the strangest thing of all is that it 
did not originate in the party contending, by 
profession, for a pure and non-partisanship city 
government, but in the movement identified 
with Tammany Hall. That we should ever live 
to see a coalition between the machine politics 
of New York and the principles and plans of 
the Universalist Church passes comprehension. 
But this thing has veritably come to pass. We 
only regret that we cannot bestow upon Tam- 
many Hall the credit of any good intentions in 
suggesting this profane and pietistic combina- 
tion. 

The matter to which I refer is the now 
widely known expression of a famous Tammany 



GENUINE UNIVERSALIST PROFANITY. 113 

leader in the present hot contest in the metrop- 
olis, in which he gave vent to his political — if 
not religious — aspirations in the concise and 
emphatic sentence, " To hell with reform." 
The words, I believe, have been adopted as a 
shibboleth of the party, and are displayed on 
transparencies and carried in processions. It will 
be seen at a glance that this famous Tammany 
motto is in perfect harmony with the teachings 
of our own Church. It is the great hope of the 
liberal faith that " reform " will at last be car- 
ried into the infernal regions everywhere — in 
this world or any other. We should not object 
if this work of reform should be carried into 
Tammany Hell (Hall, excuse us), and all other 
infernos where evil reigns supreme. To carry 
reform into every place of perdition in the 
world or out of it is a commendable purpose, 
and any genuine co-operation from New York 
would be thankfully received. We trust the 
New York correspondent of " The Leader " will 
look after our interest in that regard, and do 
what he can to promote so promising a move- 
ment as carrying reform into the Metropolitan 
Hades. The co-operation in this case may 
furnish a new illustration of the old saying, 
"Politics makes strange bed-fellows!" But 
this is just what religion ought to join politics 



114 THIXGS WISE AXD TREE WISE. 

in doing, if we are to get nearer to our genuine 
work expressed in this noble utterance. Where 
else, pray, should we go with reform than to the 
submerged millions who, like David of old, 
need deliverance from the lowest hell? Re- 
form was once carried there, why not again? 

In this grand and worthy undertaking sug- 
gested by Tammany Hall, not only L niversal- 
ists may consistently unite, but our liberal- 
minded friends in the other churches who 
believe the theory of a " second probation " 
will no doubt lend a helping hand. Their 
minds have long been dwelling on the " spirits 
in prison;" let them now join Croker and 
Tweed, who were the " advance agents " of 
this enterprise, and a "long ways ahead of 
the procession,'' and take up the rallying cry 
too lono- neglected bv the Church, but now 
adopted even by "the world, the flesh and the 
devil," and move forward to the Tammany 

vrar whoop, "To with reform," Who is 

brave enough to suggest this as a motto for the 
banners of the Young People's meetings and 
the walls of our Sunday-school rooms ? And 
yet, put into a phrase somewhat more polished, 
does it not embody the very thing for which 
we are organized? An Irishman said to his 
companion upon first hearing the hullabaloo 



GENUINE UNIVERSALIST PROFANITY. 115 

and hallelujahs of the Salvation Army, " Well, 
that beats the devil ! " Said his companion, 
" Faith, that's the intintion ! " Tammany's motto 
expresses the precise "intintion" of our reli- 
gion, and is the only case on record of profanity 
embodying a Christian purpose. The Rev. Dr. 
McClure, a Presbyterian divine, many years ago 
was in the habit of twitting Universalists 
with their inconsistency whenever they used 
profane language, inasmuch as it was practi- 
cally a profession on their part of the Orthodox 
belief. " The Universalists," he said, " are so 
far reduced that they have to steal Orthodox 
oaths to swear by." He furthermore affirmed 
that the only consistent Universalist profanity 
would run, " God bless your soul to heaven ! " 
At last this famous New York politico-theolo- 
gical reformer of the world and the under-world 
has unwittingly come to our rescue, and has 
taken away our reproach. If we were less pious 
than we are, we should exclaim, " Thank thee, 
Jew, for that word." But as it is, we can 
only spring to the telephone that connects us 
with Tammany Hall, and shout vociferously, 
« Hell-o and All Hail ! ! " 



116 THINGS WISE AND OTBEBWISE. 



XV. 



Not that I am tipping rocks in the old 
Granite State just now for amusement. The 
vacation has not introduced me into the frater- 
nity of the ancient and honorable Sons of Anak 
with Titanic proportions, that rival the preten- 
sions of the latest college athlete or victorious 
pugilist. Such a transformation on my part 
were inconceivable. 

I therefore hasten to allay the anxieties of 
the ministerial coterie of Boston and vicinity 
and elsewhere, who may fancy that I have a 
grudge against them and am prepared to pay 
off old scores, by announcing the fact that 
Tipping Rocks has not been adopted by me as 
an avocation. It would far better accord with 
my " spiritual " as well as physical etherializa- 
tion, to be " tipping tables," or with my well- 
known generosity, to be " tipping waiters." 
" Be charitable," said the late Artemus Ward, 
in the reign of small silver currency, " three- 
cent pieces were made a-purpose." Let all 



" TIPPING BOCKS." 117 

Sunday contributors take notice. Be composed, 
then, while I assure you that Tipping Rocks is 
only a curious and interesting fact of Nature on 
Shirley Hill, New Hampshire, crowning that 
delightful eminence with a geological exhibition 
that attracts in the summer months very wide 
attention. 

A walk of ten minutes from my summer 
hostelry, through a delightful grove of pines 
and chestnuts, brings me into the open space, 
occupied by three huge boulders standing in 
proximity to each other, and no doubt consti- 
tuting in the past one solid mass. The dis- 
integrating agencies of heat and cold, or perhaps 
some shock of the natural forces, have split 
asunder the original rock and left it a " trinity 
in unity," like the opening chestnut burrs not 
far away when touched by the autumnal frosts. 
They are composed of the common granite of 
the State, with a liberal admixture of quartz 
and mica, and displaying on the surface here 
and there garnets, which the prying eyes and 
knives of visitors not infrequently extract. 
Some of them would take away not only the 
rubies but the rocks, for how they would adorn 
a city home in the setting of a capacious lawn ! 

What a view spreads out before the visitor as 
he gains the position of the Tipping Rocks. 



118 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

At the witching hour of evening the sunsets 
are gorgeous. By moonlight the scene is 
enchanting. In the morning hour the eye rests 
on a broad and varied expanse. Yonder is Joe 
English, deriving its name from a famous 
warrior and hunter, who, two hundred years 
ago, finding three Indians upon his track, set 
off at full speed for the top of the mountain, 
now bearing his name. Concealing himself 
behind a jutting rock near the summit, he 
dispatched one after another of his pursuers, 
and left them for food for the hungry wolves. 
The gun with which he did the deed is still 
kept as a relic of that bloody time. Near by 
are the Unconoonac Mountains, and in the dis- 
tance Monadnock and Wachusett, and far to 
the north on a clear day may be seen the out- 
lines of Mt. Washington. The e} 7 e sweeps the 
whole horizon. No more imposing outlook is 
found in New England. 

Only two of the sightly rocks presenting this 
view ever get " tipsy," the third setting a good 
example of steadfastness to the city visitors. 
The larger of the granite twins, which, like the 
human variety, are susceptible of motion, is 
eight feet high, and forty-two in circumference ; 
and all three are estimated, by the State Geol- 
ogist, Prof. C. H. Hitchcock, to weigh ninety 



" TIPPING ROCKS." 119 

tons. The united rock was a deposit of the 
glacial period of two hundred and forty thou- 
sand years ago, when an immense thickness of 
ice covered the whole of New Hampshire, to the 
summits of the highest mountains. If any one 
is not satisfied with the particular date of the 
glacial period, let him consult the files of 
« The Frozen Truth," published by Frost, Bo- 
reas & Co., and deposited in the Rocky Arch- 
ives of Fossildom. There is nothing like 
having everything exact. Our Advent friends 
fix the precise date, from prophetic figures, 
when, at the end of all terrestrial things, there 
will not only be tipping rocks, but skipping 
mountains ; and why not be a little precise in 
science, as well as in Scripture ? And so this 
great ice-sheet of two hundred and forty thou- 
sand years ago (let us not be scared out of our 
figures), moving towards the equator, kindly 
left behind it the Tipping Rocks of Shirley 
Hill for the delectation of the summer boarder, 
— a still more curious product of the omnivor- 
ous period. At all events the Tipping Rocks, 
as I can testify, are there, of great size and 
weight, and so exactly poised that a woman's 
palm only, is requisite to produce the moving 
force, — so near has literally come to pass the 
poet's words, " The hand that rocks the 



120 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

cradle, is the hand that rocks the world." 
They have even been known to sway by the 
wind, with the aid probably of a little imagi- 
nation. 

But Tipping Rocks are more frequently found 
in this commonwealth than might at first be 
supposed. Nature repeats her story at least as 
often as an after-dinner speaker. Consulting 
the geological reports, under the head of " Rock- 
ing Stones," I find a Tipping Rock upon Mt. 
Pawtuckaway ; another at Meredith Village ; 
another in Warren ; another, nine feet high, egg 
shaped, weighing twenty-five tons, and standing 
upon its larger end, in Newport ; another near 
Dartmouth College, twelve feet long, ten feet 
high, containing four hundred and eighty cubic 
feet. It has been transported only a short dis- 
tance from its present position. Another, the 
famous Bartlett boulder, fifteen feet long, twelve 
wide, ten high, resting upon four smaller blocks, 
and visited annually by many summer sojourn- 
ers. Mine own eye hath seen it. 

It has been said that Nature's dice are always 
loaded, and that nothing walks with aimless 
feet, but it seems strange that so many throws 
of the spotted cubes should result in these 
rocky freaks in so limited a territory. There 
must have been a great many tipping rocks 



"TIPPING BOCKS." 121 

away back in the geological epochs, by the 
throes of nature, and when God lifted the con- 
tinents with convulsions, to have hit, here and 
there, the tipping rocks that interest us in the 
present, when, as Dryden sings, "A rising 
earthquake rocked the ground." The rocking 
rocks, far back in time, could not have been 
used as a symbol of stability, and would have 
spoiled much rhetoric. The faith that sang, 
m The Lord is my Rock," must have found a 
comparison then in the unchanging laws of 
God, that rest beneath and operate through all 
natural forms and forces. No prehistoric Bryant 
could have dilated upon a firmness " rock-ribbed 
and ancient as the sun," or Walter Scott have 
put into the mouth of his undaunted hero, 

" Come one, come all ; this rock shall fly 
From its firm base as soon as I." 

And even when the Master changed the name 
of Simon, son of Jonas, to Peter, the subse- 
quent denial of that apostle of stone converted 
him for awhile into a tipping rock that seemed 
to ordinary vision to threaten the eternal foun- 
dations. Fortunately when before, Jesus said, 
" Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will 
build my church, and the gates of hell shall not 
prevail against it," he referred not to Peter as 
a person, but to his great confession of Christ's 



122 THINGS WISE AXD OTHERWISE. 

Messiahship, which in the true interpretation, 
being a universal spiritual fact, is far more 
enduring than any rock. All earthly symbols 
of stability which adorn our literature, sacred 
and profane, are, relatively to the absolute 
principles of religion, but the tipping rocks. 

Plymouth Rock will be transient compared 
with the principles for which it stands. Some 
of us remember when Chapin, in Faneuil Hall, 
Boston, rocked the "cradle of liberty " in an 
eloquent speech, in which that temple of 
American freedom was made the organ, and 
Plymouth Rock the pedal. The institutions of 
liberty since that day have been as the tipping 
rocks, but fortunately the great leaders, putting 
their feet upon the seeming void, found the 
rock of immortal truth beneath. Benedict 
Arnold was a tipping rock to "Washington, but 
no treason could permanently defeat the rock- 
principles for which the incorruptible patriot 
contended. The rocking stones are on the sur- 
face ; but the enduring foundations, made solid 
by many convulsions and revolutions, are laid 
far below, and in the moral realm, at least, are 
as enduring as the laws of mathematics and 
the harmonies of music. Nevertheless, the 
foundations of God stancleth sure. Here end- 
eth a morning's meditation at Tipping Rocks. 



IMMORTALITY BY PROXY.''' 123 



XVI. 

"IMMORTALITY BY PROXY." 

" The Watchman " does not covet for the Bap- 
tist denomination an "immortality by proxy," 
meaning that the influence of that Church should 
not pass over to other denominational bodies 
while the Baptist Church itself becomes weak- 
ened by " a gush about unsectarianism." It sees 
other denominations closing up their ranks ; the 
Episcopalians never so assertive and loyal to 
their church as now ; the Presbyterians carrying 
denominational fidelity almost to an extreme 
point; the Methodists holding together in their 
work with singular tenacity; and the Roman 
Catholics making larger claims in recent years; 
while the Baptists are sustaining serious losses 
through lack of thorough-going loyalty to their 
distinctive principles. It is this situation which 
gives rise to a stirring article on Baptist denom- 
inational loyalty. 

The liberal churches, it is known, not infre- 
quently excuse their lack of numerical growth by 
claiming to have exerted a " leavening in- 



124 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

fluence " on all the denominations. The organ- 
ized movement may fade away, but having 
modified the thought and life of other Christian 
bodies, their work has been well done, and they 
can retire with honor. The role they play is 
that of the discursive preacher, who, after 
spreading himself in a sermon through the 
prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, 
inquired, " And now, where shall Hosea come 
in? " and was answered by an old parishioner, 
who rose to leave, " He can have my place, par- 
son, I'm going out." 

I do not see why the Universalist Church, any 
more than the Baptist, should be contented to 
spread its influence around in a miscellaneous 
and indefinite way, and imitate the weary pa- 
rishioner in "going out," leaving the field won 
by its own principles to others, and enjoy 
quietly an immortality by proxy. The older 
denominations are indeed largely working now 
on Universalist principles. In the pulpit, in 
philanthropic work, in explaining the problems 
of life, in the administration of comfort, in con- 
templating the future world — the teachings of 
all the Churches have been influenced for the 
better by our doctrines. We rejoice in this, but 
it does not release us from an obligation to use 
our own principles in the production of benefi- 



"IMMORTALITY BY PROXY." 125 

cent results. With the older Churches it is new 
wine in old wineskins, which are liable to burst 
with the fermentation of the larger truths, or 
new cloth which has so overlaid the old theolo- 
gical garment that it lacks congruity, while as 
proclaimed by Universalists the system is with- 
out seam, woven throughout and everywhere 
harmonious, part with part. Why should we 
not, therefore, use our own Christian instru- 
mentalities for doing our own work, and help 
along in the general progress of mankind ? It 
is exceedingly modest on the part of certain ad- 
vanced Orthodox divines, having first appropri- 
ated the larger truths, to quietly wave us from 
the field, with the affirmation that the mission of 
the Universalist Church is now accomplished, 
and that our existence can be perpetuated as an 
" influence " through their labors and organiza- 
tions ! It recalls the answer of the professor, 
whose little son inquired, " What does « requi- 
escat in pace* mean?" "Please stay dead, is 
near enough," said the professor. 

I see no reason why we should consent to 
stay dead, because our principles are leavening 
the whole lump. Whoever makes the best use 
of the truths of God's love, man's brotherhood, 
universal victory over evil, will be entitled to 
the most credit. " Help us, O Lord," once ran a 



126 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

Universalist prayer, " to put down the Method- 
ists, Congregationalists and Baptists, by praying 
better, living better, and loving better, than 
they." There is plenty of room in this world 
for the operation and spread of true Christian 
principles through manifold organizations. 
Whoever is most faithful will get the most 
of the fruits of the spirit. No evangelical 
" proxy " can do the work assigned to us. 
There is no reason to be satisfied with an im- 
mortality of influence, when we can stay right 
along, and start new and better influences, that 
will broaden the mission of the Universalist 
Church in all the future. Instead of raising the 
old cry, " Leaven the lump," let us join " The 
Watchman's " rallying shout, " No immortality 
by proxy ! " Exceedingly poor policy would it 
be, just when the world has ripened and mel- 
lowed under the warmth of divine and human 
love, to withdraw the very power that helped to 
produce the beneficent effect. 

This, indeed, is what affords us our oppor- 
tunity. All we require for larger success is 
fidelity to our principles, and to the organiza- 
tions that embody and express them. " Has 
your husband's love diminished ?" asked the 
judge of the applicant for divorce. " Oh, no," 
said she, " it has increased." " Then why do 



"IMMORTALITY BY PROXY." 127 

you want a separation ? " persisted the judge. 
Well, you see, it has ceased to flow in my 
direction." The sympathies of mankind have 
not ceased to flow towards the truths of Uni- 
versalism, and what reason is there to separate 
ourselves from the important work to which we 
lave been providentially called ? 

In fact, our principles have but just begun to 
oe applied. The world is waking up under 
their power. Our Church in America is of com- 
paratively recent origin. Hosea Ballou, whose 
birthday falls on the thirtieth day of this month, 
and whose writings created an epoch in the 
then infant Church, did not, until the cen- 
tury had well advanced, make a wide impression 
upon religious thought. But he planted the 
germs of what have been called the " Universals 
of the Gospel," — Universal Love, Universal 
Providence, Universal Spiritual Nature of Man, 
Universal Care of God, Universal Reign of 
Righteousness, Universal Salvation. None of 
these ideas which distinguish Universalism have 
begun to find universal acceptance and applica- 
tion. Little reason is there, then, to give our- 
selves up to an immortality by proxy. The 
Baptists, agreeing so closely with other denomi- 
nations in doctrines, can far better afford to do 
it. But with us it would be to abandon a great 



128 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

work upon which we have hardly entered. It 
would be like the man who said to an acquain- 
tance, " I hear dot your son is goin' into pees- 
ness for himself." " Yes," was the reply, " he 
vas t'inking of shtartin' in mit a glozing-out 
sale." As a hundred years are but a day in the 
life of a denomination, we are not disposed to 
start in with closing out. 



THE MONTH OF FOOLS. 129 



XVII. 

THE MONTH OF FOOLS. 

April is symbolical of dispositions — her 
traditional sunshine and showers indicative of 
our changing moods. 

" In tears and blushes sighs herself away, 
And hides her cheek beneath the flowers of May. 1 ' 

We have April folks who are represented by 
April fickleness, — just as blustering souls find 
likeness in the fuss and flurry of March. We 
are reflected in our environment. 

But the April just now closing, having failed 
to sustain a reputation for vacillation, apparently 
struck out — both meteorologically and morally 
— to present a new and independent role. By 
a striking coincidence of happenings, it has won, 
in this year of grace, the questionable distinc- 
tion of being the month of fools. 

This is the more remarkable, as her initial 
day is held by long custom sacred to " All- 
Fools." Charlemagne called it in his calendar 
the Grass month, — the name still retained by 



130 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

the Dutch. But grass is a Scriptural syno- 
nym for " all flesh," and with strange appropri- 
ateness we metaphorically speak of "greenness " 
of character. And so a suggestion of foolish- 
ness is concealed under Charlemagne's " leaves 
of grass." This agrees no less with antique 
monuments, whereon April is represented as a 
dancing youth with a rattle in his hand, — 
foolishness and frolic being her predominant 
mood. 

" At last young April, ever frail and fair, 
Wooed by her playmate with, the golden hair, 
Chased to the margin of receding floods, 
Steals o'er soft meadows starred with opening buds." 

This round of "fortune's furious fickle wheel," 
as Shakespeare — himself an April product, but 
not of the foolish variety — calls it, may, by 
some occult law, account for the fact that an 
eminent statesman and a no less eminent divine 
have unconsciously united in signalizing the 
current April as the month of fools. Colonel 
Roosevelt has fretted the air with a rough 
rider's tilt against the "fool-reformers;" while 
on the clerical side an eloquent clergyman, the 
Rev. Dr. Plumb of Boston, having his eye in 
fine frenzy rolling, has discovered floating from 
the defiant front of the Sunday bicycle a banner 
with this strange device, " The champion fool ! " 



THE MONTH OF FOOLS. 131 

Taken together, — the e very-day fool-reformers 
of the governor, and the Sunday fool-revolvers 
of the gospeler, — we have found a considerable 
expansion of All-Fools' day. There are hardly 
enough fool-favors, in fact, to go round. 

In view of this epidemic of fools in the realm 
of politics and impiety, there would seem to be, 
if we are to believe these high functionaries, 
some justification of the famous ejaculation of 
Puck, — " What fools we mortals be ! " And no 
little support of Carlyle's concentrated British 
census, " Forty millions — mostly fools ! " 

But why this sudden outbreak of mental im- 
becility and inefficiency? Does it indicate a 
general civil and religious situation bordering 
on despair, or does it arise from an impatient 
and imperious temper, which finds itself unable 
to look with toleration upon persons and per- 
formances not dominated by certain principles 
and purposes ? 

It is not a hopeful symptom surely — whether 
in politics or religion — this dominating and 
domineering attitude with regard to differences 
of thought and custom and method. It is re- 
quired that we be not only sound but sweet. 
Whatever may be said of the fool-reformers, 
the wise reformers have not sawed the air and 
been loud-mouthed and clamorous ; nor have 



132 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

genuine religious reformers proved their doctrine 
orthodox by apostolic blows and knocks. We 
can hardly imagine, for example, Hosea Ballou, 
whose birthday falls next Sunday (April 30), 
joining these great dispensers of honors in April 
fooldom and dealing out denunciations for all 
whose opinions and practices he found himself 
unable to control. His dependence upon the 
sweet reasonableness of religion was justified 
by the reforms that followed in religious thought. 
And he could always answer a fool, too, accord- 
ing to his folly. 

It may, indeed, be quietly assumed as a 
general fact that the fools are not all dead 
yet, and will not be, so long as we ourselves 
survive ; but too much personal precision in 
distributing the diplomas may be foolhardy, 
entitling the dispenser to a conspicuous place 
in the Fool's Paradise. 

It must be confessed, however, that the good 
book makes liberal bestowment of the Fool- 
osopher's degree ; but always, it will be ob- 
served, on grounds of actual merit, never issued 
by the college of passion or prejudice. Al- 
though it is not a little agreeable to the refined 
sensibilities of this present generation to find 
that the revised version has here and there 
softened the severities of the old translation, 



THE MONTH OF FOOLS. 133 

changing, for example, the blunt " Thou fool ! " 
in First Corinthians, into the more courteous, 
and really convincing, " Thou foolish one ! " 
we would respectfully recommend the " revis- 
ion " to those who, as Burke says, are given to 
" a theatrical, bombastic, windy phraseology." 

We are willing to concede that in severity of 
speech much depends on the expression and 
tone of the speaker. One may even be called 
a fool in such dulcet accents as to arouse flat- 
tering emotions. Words softer than oil may 
be drawn swords of conviction and conversion. 
A critic complained to Dr. Channing of the 
hard denunciations by Jesus ; the Doctor repeatr 
ing them in a manner appropriate to Christ's 
character, the accuser remarked, " Oh, if he said 
it in that way, there's no fault to be found." 

Whether the Unitarian saint could put into 
the politician's fool-reformers and the preacher's 
champion fools a tenderness which would make 
them messages of love and personal concern, 
may be doubtful; but it would be an experi- 
ment worth trying in any school of moral and 
oratorical expression. Whitefield could move 
an assembly to tears by his solemn and pathetic 
utterance of the word " Mesopotamia." And 
there may be some hope that fool-reformers, 
and champion fools, may yet be found in a 



134 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

lachrymose condition, under the " reformed " 
deliverance of preachers and politicians. 

But until we can go on our fool's errand in 
a more gracious spirit, we shall find ourselves 
fooling with fire-arms, starting a blaze with 
kerosene, or enacting some other universally 
recognized folly, which will return to plague 
the perpetrator. 

" The man recovered from the bite. 
The dog it was that died." 

Nor must we forget that many circumlocu- 
tions in verbal severities may serve to adroitly 
adjust the rod to the fool's back, while the 
effect may be more enlightening and corrective. 
Carlyle knew how to say bold, bluff things, but 
he knew also how to delineate, so that the 
portrait was unmistakable ; as when he depicts 
an Honorable Somebody who had a look of 
perfect politeness and perfect silliness, his face 
heavily wrinkled, smiling and shuttling about 
at a wonderful rate ; while in the smile there 
seemed to be lodged a frozen sorrow as if 
bordering on a craze. 

This lacks, we must own, the bluntness 
leveled at our April fools ; but it amuses, while 
it accuses, and suggests that it may be better 
to paint a repellent portrait than to strike by 
lightning. We remember with what paternal 



THE MONTH OF FOOLS. 135 

devoutness the Rev. Dr. Coxe, a distinguished 
Presbyterian clergyman, communicated to his 
son the startling announcement that the younger 
man was non compos mentis. The son, having 
become a minister in a high form of ecclesiasti- 
cism, set out to announce to his sire, that while, 
no doubt, he was a very good man, he could 
not be called a Christian minister, as he had 
not been Apostolically ordained. The old gen- 
tleman patiently heard his arrogant assump- 
tions, and got in his impressions of his son's 
intellectual capacity by a spiritual " Round 
Robin " via the Celestial City. " God forgive 
me," he piously ejaculated, "for having be- 
gotten a fool ! " While the plain blunt man, 
who speaks right on, creates an immediate agi- 
tation, the ultimate result for reforms and 
righteousness may not be so bright as when 
we speak the truth in love. The wisdom of 
this world is foolishness with God. 

Fortunately, Governor Roosevelt did not 
define his fool-reformers — and so we are not 
preaching politics by referring to it. He did 
the always safe thing of allowing others to 
make their own applications. A reputation for 
courage is easily won, by flinging bold words 
into the air. They ring and startle, but do not 
strike. It is a matter of definitions. Poli- 



136 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

ticians and preachers alike are often glorified 
as wonderfully independent, for using " ubiqui- 
tous platitudes " as Senator Hoar calls them. 
Already it has been attempted to turn the 
tables on the New York Executive himself, and 
apply the fool-reformer to his own career. As 
if the gun, when aimed at duck and plover, had 
recoiled and kicked the owner over. Such are 
the uncertainties of oratorical pyrotechnics. 
Our curses come home to roost. All world- 
leaders, it must be remembered, have been fool- 
reformers to their own generations; while the 
later generations build their sepulchers. Christ, 
not Pilate, the scaffold, not the throne, rule the 
future. Inspiring examples adorn the pages of 
all history. The fool-reformers have reported 
progress, and asked for further time. A few 
years ago a lawyer in Athens moved the court 
to reverse the sentence passed against Socrates. 
As to the other April variety — the cham- 
pion fool astride the Sunday wheel — as usual, 
so many modifications and exceptions are re- 
quired, that its author was evidently much 
nearer plumb in name than in judgment and 
temper. Even conservative journals were 
aroused, by the over-statement, to equally ex- 
treme assaults upon the church and clergy. It 
would not be surprising if the Sunday bicyclists 



THE MONTH OF FOOLS. 137 

should adopt " The champion fool " for their 
motto, and so the last state of that man be 
worse than the first. Such irritating and 
sweeping accusations will not reform the cus- 
toms of society. It requires long and patient 
training as to the balance and proportion of 
life. The habitual, all-Sunday-long wheel-man, 
is unwise, and is working injury to himself and 
others ; he needs to be reminded that the home, 
the church, and the Sabbath have claims upon a 
part, at least, of the sacred hours; and that 
having reasonably met those claims for his own 
sake, and the good of the community, he may 
mount the silent steed with a clear conscience — 
as his neighbor, having attended to the same 
duties and privileges, may saddle his horse, for 
a moderate gallop through the park or along 
the highway, or take a seat in car or carriage 
with his wife and children, or go on foot into 
the field, or wander by the mountains or sea. 
But he must not do this to the neglect of the 
obligations belonging to his religious nature, 
and to organizations and institutions which con- 
serve the higher interests of mankind. By 
properly mingling and balancing these interests 
he will become an all-round — and not an all- 
fool — character, and a champion wise man in 
more than one department of life. 



138 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

But the shouting of "fool, fool," either by 
politician or preacher, will work no good, only 
evil. It neither accords with the genius of 
American religion nor American civics. The 
free spirit will be found to repel and rebel. 
Epithets of rudeness and ridicule are turned 
into shibboleths. The fool-reformers and cham- 
pion fools — including those once reckoned 
such, by some, at Lexington and Concord, on 
the immortal 19th of April — will appeal to a 
later and more liberal tribunal. It did not hurt 
the Quakers to be termed " unbaptized, button- 
less blackguards;" or Sir Robert Peel, to be 
derided as " Orange Peel " by those who hated 
the House of Orange; or Macaulay that the wags 
changed Babington in his name to "Babble- 
tongue ; " or George Whitefield with his crooked 
eyes to be ridiculed as " Dr. Squintum." 

And surely to-day any true man will respect 
reason more than railing; partisanship and 
bigotry will pass by him as the idle winds he 
heeds not, knowing that he must become a fool 
to many, that he may be truly wise to himself 
and God. In this view the fools which April 
has presented may be as evanescent as her 
changing smiles and tears. 



LYING AS A FINE ART. 139 



XVIII. 

LYING AS A FINE ART. 

Not that I am ambitious to figure as an ex- 
pert, or as a rival to De Quincey in " Murder as 
a Fine Art," but would venture to indicate 
some tendencies and possibilities in this attrac- 
tive field. Lies, like many sermons, have been 
arranged under three heads, — lies, lies with an 
evangelical prefix, and statistics. The art of 
falsification finds opportunity to disport itself 
in each of the three divisions. There is more 
variety in lying than Shakespeare found in his 
" retorts." He managed to discover the " retort 
courteous," but I am not sure in the art of lying 
that that distinction has been reached. The 
nearest to a courteous retort in this field I can 
recall, was by Horace Greeley, who, wishing to 
brand a falsehood, printed it in " The Tribune," 
followed by these words : " Some persons be- 
lieve, and they think on good authority, that 
liars are welcomed to an exceedingly hot depart- 
ment in the world to come, but our solicitude 
for the safety of the writer of the above, would 



140 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

lead us to hope that the belief is not well 
founded."' As a work of art this is much 
neater than the clumsy statement of an editor, 
who describes himself as a "holiness member," 
and tells, says a brother editor, what appear to 
be seven lies in a brief space. And the brother 
editor adds with a little more lubricity, that is 
the kind of holiness which the prophet evidently 
had in mind when he described it as " filthy 
rags." Lying as a fine art need not limit itself 
to words. Paley says a man may act a lie, as 
by pointing his finger in a wrong direction when 
a traveler inquires of him the road. It may 
be done also by raising the brows or shrugging 
the shoulders, or by side glances, as also by 
evasion, emphasis, or tone, or accepting tenets 
for substance of doctrine. The he insinuative 
may get in its deadly work, or the he interroga- 
tive may start its penetrative suspicion. 

A certain legitimacy attaches to this accom- 
plishment, in the science of war, where to act a 
falsehood, with a view to deceiving an enemy, is 
an evidence of martial greatness. Without 
doubt rules for its successful application are to 
be found in military manuals. The officer who 
makes a pretense of attack, or displays false 
lights, or dummy soldiers, or wooden guns, or 
disseminates false reports as to number, condi- 



LYING AS A FINE ART. 141 

tion or purpose, is hailed as a genius. The 
Jesuitical principle, that the end justifies the 
means, finds its exemplification in military 
service. An officer who should conduct a cam- 
paign on a straightforward line of truth would 
be court-martialed and executed as a traitor. 
In this realm it has become the recognized 
morality of nations when at war, to reduce 
lying to a- fine art. Civilization, it is true, has 
put, and is more and more putting, limitations 
upon military deceptions. Stratagems formerly 
allowed would not now be tolerated, which 
shows the advent of a higher standard of honor. 

I am not now raising the ethical quality of 
the transaction, but if the Peace Conference at 
the Hague, looking toward universal disarma- 
ment, should inaugurate a movement to limit 
international aggression, it would deprive the 
military conscience of the world of a tremen- 
dous opportunity of practicing this professional 
fine art, and very likely elevate generally the 
standard of genuine veracity. 

Diplomacy is another fruitful sphere for the 
maneuvering of this gift. It is the art of con- 
ducting negotiations between nations. Dex- 
terity or skill in securing advantages. " The 
tactics," according to Sparks, " of practical di- 
plomacy." I would by no means imply that 



142 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

diplomacy includes only the art of getting an 
advantage. It includes a knowledge of inter- 
national law, broad views of statesmanship, the 
balancing of interests. But it cannot be denied 
that, in the past particularly, diplomacy has been 
too commonly a synonym for trickery. As we 
become more enlightened and recognize the 
larger common interests of nations, the ele- 
ments of insincerity and artifice will be taken 
out, and negotiations placed on higher moral 
grounds. The more complicated national rela- 
tions of the United States with foreign powers, 
growing out of the present situation, are em- 
phasizing the necessity of establishing profes- 
sorships of diplomacy in our colleges, and of 
having a trained class from which to draw the 
negotiators for settling international questions. 
If, while putting more knowledge into diplomacy, 
it diffuses a larger integrity, nobler purposes 
and more open methods, it will lift the sin- 
cerity and truthfulness of nations to a higher 
plane. When diplomacy separates itself from 
complicity with the fine art of lying, it will be 
another contribution to the moral integrity of 
mankind. 

Politics is not entirely free from suspicions 
of this fine art. Municipal, State and National 
interests present opportunities for a nice shad- 



LYING AS A FINE ART. 143 

ing of opinions and policies. How adroitly 
public questions are handled, how delicately 
ticklish interests adjusted, what suppressions 
and posturings indulged in, so as to conciliate 
the factions and satisfy all the sections ! It is 
the fine art of doing it, and not doing it, at the 
same time. The skill displayed results always 
in practical falsehood, to be exposed farther 
along. A local politician " on the stump " 
declared, in vindication of his devotion to 
truth, that when a boy he had been thrashed 
by a mistaken father for telling it. It was an 
ill-mannered citizen in the hall who briskly re- 
plied, " I guess it's cured yer, guv'ner ! " 

Just now theology is all astir with the deli- 
cate handling of most explosive ingredients. 
How subscriptions to creeds can be made with- 
out indulgence in the fine art of lying is more 
than some can determine. The Briggs case 
among the Episcopalians, the McGifTert case 
among the Presbyterians, and less prominent 
cases in other denominations, are putting a 
strain upon the veracity of Christian people 
that must weaken a sense of sincerity and 
genuineness. A like condition obtains among 
Low Churchmen, Broad Churchmen, and High 
Churchmen in England, with reference to altar- 
lights, incense and confessionals. As some one 



144 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

says, the latitudinarians, the attitudinarians, and 
the platitudinarians are charging each other with 
perversions and prevarications touching the rules 
and regulations of the Church. Each cannot see 
how the others can accept certain doctrines and 
practices without stultifying conscience and 
reducing falsehood to a fine art. How can the 
old beliefs be interpreted into modern speech 
and thought and life, and yet honest convictions 
be maintained ? In this way questions of 
theology become questions of ethics, and con- 
sciences are impaired by practicing the fine art 
of appearances and striving to put new wine 
into old wine-skins. The great danger is, that 
the fine art of "splitting hairs betwixt the north 
and north-west side " will bring the clergy and 
religion into contempt. The people like open- 
ness, candor, courage, intellectual and moral 
honesty in the leaders of religious thought, and 
have no patience with pretense and prevarica- 
tion. " How Cardinal Manning," says " The 
Congregationalist," " could have remained in 
the Anglican Church for two years after he 
had consciously become a Roman Catholic — 
preaching or instructing the laity and charging 
the clergy as a devoted Anglican, repeatedly 
asserting in the most emphatic terms his loyalty 
— without self -contempt and shame, is beyond 



LYING AS A FINE ART. 145 

belief. It was not the conduct of a Christian 
or an honest man. No excuse can justify it. 
It was cowardly and dishonorable. That he 
was conscientious in his change need not be 
doubted, but that he could not always be 
trusted to deal sensitively with matters of 
either conscience or mere honor is obvious from 
more than one fact in his career." 

This same lack of truth in the inward parts 
may characterize others who have become 
skilled in the dialectics of subscriptions to 
dogmas as a fine art, and will not generate a 
stalwart conscience, but a habit of mind auto- 
matically self-deceptive. Matters get mixed 
with them, like the boy's answer to the ques- 
tion, " What is a lie ? " " An abomination to 
the Lord, and a present help in trouble." 

It will not be overlooked, of course, that 
social lies have been reduced to a fine art, or 
wondered at either after these examples in high 
places. They are known in this sphere, as 
" white lies," and there is a " black " list of 
them. Look at the " engagements " that per- 
sons have, when you want them for useful work. 
We encounter at once a whole swarm of them, 
but not a few are constructive engagements. 
A physician has been known to advise a patient 
to be " chronically engaged ; " and upon being 



146 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

told, " But suppose I am not engaged, how 
then ? " he replied, " Oh ! that's easy enough, 
have an engagement with yourself." Not a few 
persons are " at home " or " not at home " by 
an act of imagination. " Nellie, is your mother 
in ? " asked a caller. " Mother is out shop- 
ping." " When will she return ? " Nellie 
(calling back), " Mamma, what shall I say 
now ? " Sometimes there is confusion in these 
spheres of ethics, as when a mistress said to 
her servant, " Remember, Bridget, there are two 
things I must insist upon : truthfulness and 
obedience." " Yes, mum ; and when you tell 
me to tell the ladies you're out when you're in, 
which shall it be, mum, truthfulness or obedi- 
ence ? " But we must not generalize, as to this 
fine art in society, upon too slender a founda- 
tion. My personal experience does not con- 
firm it. But without doubt, it is with some a 
social habit, that might be modified to the 
wholesomeness of the moral sense. White lies 
not infrequently have their root in politeness, 
or the supposed demands of the social state. 
Many vices grow out of virtues. We do not 
often get the blunt truth involved in an invita- 
tion to dinner, sent by the son of the desired 
guests, who also returned their answer, " Ma 
said she'd accept with pleasure ; and pa said he 



LYING AS A FINE ART. 147 

wouldn't go if you come after him with a 
policeman." The small boy was not up in the 
fine art of society. A little more social sincer- 
ity, as well as more religious, political, diplo- 
matic, military sincerity, would elevate the 
moral tone of the world. The fine art of false- 
hood would give place to the finer art of speak- 
ing the truth in love. 



148 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 



XIX. 

GKEAT MINDS IN THE SAME CHANNEL. 

" The Christian Register " lately had the fol- 
lowing : " The readers of ' Many Inventions ' 
know that Kipling is a devout reader of Emer- 
son, but they do not accuse him of plagiarism 
because in the ' Recessional ' he wrote : 

' Under whose awful hand we hold 
Dominion over palm and pine,' 

while in ' Wood Notes ' Emerson had written : 

' And grant to dwellers with the pine 
Dominion over palm and vine.' " 

We had a pleasing reminder of something in 
a general way akin to this in reading Dr. 
Crowe's inspiring description of music in the 
Wengern Alp, in his address on " The Contri- 
bution of Theology to the World's Intellectual 
Life." It is wonderfully fine, and used with 
telling effect in illustration of the final har- 
monies of the spiritual universe. But I had an 
added interest, as I recalled a remarkably sim- 
ilar experience of Horace Bushnell's, in the 



GREAT MINDS IN SAME CHANNEL. 149 

same Alpine region, which was described in a 
letter written Sept. 20, 1845, and given to the 
public in the biography by his daughters, in 
1880. I found two great minds running in 
the same channel. There is not, to be sure, 
the least verbal or rhetorical resemblance in the 
literary form of the two descriptions, but they 
are suggestive as showing how the same scenes 
and sounds struck upon the senses and fancies 
of two strong and brilliant personalities. 

I know few sensations more delightful than 
those which arise from rinding ourselves unex- 
pectedly in intellectual or spiritual accord with 
the printed thought of a great leader, or in an- 
ticipation of what is coming in reading a volume 
and seeing it later fulfilled ; or in discovering, 
when we have expressed what we supposed to 
be a novel thought, or experienced an original 
sensation, to find afterward that another mind, 
unknown to us, has been there before. Some 
distinguished man said there was no delight so 
sweet as to do good by stealth and have it 
found out by accident. The satisfactions I 
have named are quite equal to it. 

I am very sure it will please Dr. Crowe to 
know that the sights and sounds he experienced 
among the Alps had come to the mind and 
heart of Dr. Bushnell nearly fifty years before. 



150 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

To my way of thinking, the description of the 
earlier tourist falls far below that of the later. 
And certainly it fails in catching the sublimer 
strains of the concord of the spirit. Dr. Crowe 
puts the Alpine symphonies to higher uses. 
But let us hasten to join Bushnell in the Alps 
and listen through his ears to what was heard 
by him in the mountain of the Lord's house : 
" I arrived at the top of the Scheideck, about 
seven thousand feet above the sea, close under 
the magnificent peak of Wetterhorn. ... It 
greatly aided the impression here that clouds 
were lying against the mountain and folding 
themselves about it as a veil, just opening 
occasionally to reveal the summit hung in mid- 
heaven, as it were, over us. We descended a 
little way, but lingered near the pass till almost 
sundown. As in a deep dell, far down below 
us, lay the green valley of Grindelwald, 
sprinkled all the way up to the highest line of 
pasture on both sides with the summer huts 
of the cheese-makers. Above, was the peak of 
the Wetterhorn, and Mettenberg and Eiger on 
the east, heading off the valley. 

"We found a boy with a loaded blunderbuss 
ready to give us an echo, which rattled and pealed 
and cracked reduplicated noises like thunder, far 
up and away among the veiled tops of the 



GREAT MINDS IN SAME CHANNEL. 151 

Oberland, drawing a response from each. Then 
we fell to trying our voices through a flaring 
wooden trumpet that was offered to us. I 
found that my loudest bass shout produced an 
effect almost superhuman, and I was tempted 
and urged to continue it, till I was quite hoarse. 
Up rolled the sound into the unknown, misty 
world, prolonging itself in swells and pulsa- 
tions so seraphic, that it seemed as if the choirs 
of heaven had replied. I never could have 
thought it possible for any single note to have 
such a depth and ravishing power. Not all the 
notes I ever heard had so much music in them. 

" Presently the veil began to grow thin. Look- 
ing up, we saw far up in the sky, a pure white 
terrace, like a battlement of the upper world, 
shining faintly through ; and while we were 
gazing and wondering at the stupendous height, 
we saw breaking forth, still far above on the 
right, a tall granite pinnacle, and suddenly 
again on the left another yet a thousand feet 
higher." 

" Only that, and nothing more," and yet that 
must have been ravishing to the outward sense. 
We hear without us what we have within us. 
But may we not imagine that the big loaded 
blunderbuss, which reduplicated noises like 
thunder, and the flaring wooden trumpet, repre- 



152 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

sent the coarse, harsh discords of the theology 
of 1845, to which Bushnell was even then 
trying to close his ears, and that the " fine en- 
trancing music of the big Alpine horn " heard 
by the liberal divine of the nineties, represents 
the finer and final harmonies of a later and 
larger faith ? " Some that stood by heard it, 
and said it thundered, others said an angel 
spake unto him." 

Dr. Chapin used to say that the hotel bells, 
where he was spending his vacation, expressed 
in their tones their respective bills of fare. 
For example, the bell of the grand hostelry 
sounded out clear and strong, " Coffee and 
steak, coffee and steak ; " while the timid tones 
from the boarding-house bell around the corner 
tinkled, " fish and tater, fish and tater." This 
may seem like the familiar step from the sub- 
lime to the ridiculous, but may it not be a 
homely illustration of the meanings gathered 
up from the voices of nature and life ? It is 
certain that the mountain echoes heard by 
Bushnell did not, and could not with his 
views of the great hereafter, do service, as they 
did years afterward, when heard by an ear 
attuned to the heavenly harmonies of a moral 
victory in the spiritual universe. 

We think of Tennyson's poem, "The Bugle" : 



GEEAT MINDS IN SAME CHANNEL. 153 

"Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying." 

But the echoes of the loftier liberal faith 
take up the Laureate's larger faith, and sing in 
the same verse, 

" O love, they die in yonder sky, 

They faint on hill or field or river, 
Our echoes roll from soul to soul, 
And grow forever and forever." 

We cannot resist an unexpected impulse to 
permit the reader to hear again the Alpine 
melodies which entranced Dr. Crowe, suggesting 
to him the higher harmonies of the celestial 
world. They recall Coleridge's " Before Sun- 
rise in the Vale of Chamouni," breathing the 
law and love of an all-pervading spirit : — 

"God! Sing, ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice! 
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds 1 
And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow, 
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God! 
Ye living flowers, that skirt the eternal frost! 
Ye wild goats, sporting round the eagle's nest! 
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm! 
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! 
Ye signs and wonders of the elements! 
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise." 

So must the mountain melodies have sounded 
to the inner hearing of our New York divine, 
and it is only fair that we display, in proximity 



154 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

to Bushnell's words under like circumstances, 
the raptures and analogies of the more recent 
tourist. I notice that they have been already 
called to do service by a writer in another 
denomination. As we unite both in a common 
appreciation, we have no fear of the, so called, 
deadly parallel. Hearken then, once again, to 
the softer notes of a liberal faith from Alpine 
summits : — 

" When my friend and I were plunging down 
the deep shoulder of the Wengern Alp, sud- 
denly we heard music — great, fine, entrancing^ 
pure music, out of which all mere noise had 
been distilled. We stopped short, in breathless 
charm. It came from the mountain wall to our 
right, which rose precipitous a thousand feet. 
Up, the great volume of harmony would sweep, 
again and again, from deep organ tone, through 
bell-note and cornet and piano and violin and 
flute, to the finest ring of silvery cymbals on 
the topmost crag. Out, the blending melodies 
would rush, across the deep valley, to the 
bosom of the Jungfrau, till all the atmosphere, 
for miles around, was filled and pulsing with 
the gladness of it. That gigantic wall of ragged 
stone was a mile-wide orchestra, whose number- 
less instruments were played by a many-handed 
archangel. Down the path, fifteen minutes on, 



GREAT MINDS IN SAME CHANNEL. 155 

we found him — and he wasn't an archangel ; 
he was a thick-necked, bellows-lunged Switszer, 
at the mouthpiece of his big alpine horn. We 
gave him money and bade him blow. He 
fetched a mighty blast, and another, and another; 
but we heard the horn, and not the echoes ; and 
it was only a rasping noise. We looked up at 
the mountain wall, and marveled that the stony 
ledge could take such repellent sound and 
transform it into music so celestial and throw 
it abroad with such divine prodigality. 

" This rough experience of our daily life, 
this battle, this pain, while we are in the midst 
of it, gives little promise of celestial harmonies. 
The mountain wall of cold, hard law, against 
which our lives are flung, does not seem like 
the presence of the loving God, but it takes up 
our harsh experience, and absorbs the crudeness 
out of it, and gives it celestial transformation, 
and multiplies the glory of it, and throws it 
aloft, across the valley of death to the sunlit 
hills, in the immortal music of purity and wis- 
dom and joy." 

Like the old Gospel trumpet of the Apostle, 
this horn of the Wengern Alp, falling on the 
hearing ear and understanding heart, gives no 
uncertain sound as it echoes back from the 
" sunlit hills " of immortality — 



156 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

" On Alpine heights the love of God is shed ; 
He paints the morning red, 
The flowerets white and blue, 
And feeds them with his dew. 
On Alpine heights a loving Father dwells. 

On Alpine heights the herdsman tends his herd 

His shepherd is the Lord ; 

For he who feeds the sheep 

Will sure his offspring keep. 

On Alpine heights a loving Father dwellf." 



A MINISTERIAL AFTERMATH. 157 



XX. 

A MINISTERIAL AFTERMATH. 

No doubt some facetious literalist will rise 
to remark that as aftermath signifies a second 
crop of grass, it may imply a dangerous personal 
rebound for the writer. But we are not so green 
as to " go to grass " by any such etymological 
hocus pocus. We prefer to imitate the poets 
in a higher use of the word, and gather a little 
" rowen " into the gospel haymow. We hope 
we shall not imitate the ministers who are said 
to rake with the teeth upward. When John 
Brough ran for Governor of Ohio, the wags, 
remembering that he weighed three hundred, 
exclaimed, — 

" If flesh is grass, as people say, 
Then Johnny Brough' s a load of hay." 

He said it must be so, by the way all the 
donkeys were nibbling at him. Fortunately we 
write in peace, and gather this ministerial after- 
math impervious to the slings and arrows of 
outrageous fortune. It would be a poor season 



158 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

that did not yield some professional hints and 
helps. 

I have noticed for one thing how many talents 
are to be found in a company of vacationists, 
which are utilized and combined for the general 
pleasure and profit. Very much time is given 
to cards, pool, bowling, quoits, croquet, tennis 
and other games. But much pleasure is derived 
from enlisting the varied faculties of the sum- 
mer colony. The artist is there, using his 
pencil on local scenes, to interest the company. 
The amateur photographer takes snap shots, 
and after the products are handed about for 
inspection, they are taken away as reminders of 
pleasant hours. Some have the gift of singing, 
others of speaking, or playing on musical instru- 
ments ; and there are natural born leaders and 
organizers who, coming to the front, arrange and 
direct these different powers, so as to furnish 
many occasions of instruction and entertain- 
ment. 

I recall a fine program, presenting eighteen 
numbers, forming an inspiring occasion. In it 
was an original hymn by a member of the com- 
pany, set to music by another, a musical com- 
poser, sung by still another, the chorus enlisting 
many voices ; and the piano, which furnished 
the accompaniment, had been tuned, during the 



A MINISTERIAL AFTERMATH. 159 

day, by one of the guests ! Here is a sugges- 
tion to the minister, as he resumes work, of the 
importance of finding, uniting, enlisting, and 
leading the different talents among his people. 

Another element in this ministerial aftermath 
is the better relation between the clergy of the 
different denominations. This is everywhere 
apparent. Both preachers and parishes affiliate 
more largely. They unite on general occasions, 
exchange more freely, join together in annual 
celebrations, and show a broader Christian spirit. 
Governor Rollins, of New Hampshire, made a 
great sensation, in his Fast Day proclamation, 
by lamenting the decadence of religion in the 
State ; but there is manifestly a growing spirit 
of fellowship among the preachers and people 
of all the denominations, — and there is much 
religion in that. A generation ago no such 
fraternization existed among the adherents of 
different creeds. Religion is found more in the 
agreements, and not so much in the differences, 
of the people. Such representations of sectarian 
bitterness, wrangling and scheming, as are to 
be found in the writings of those who are striv- 
ing to combine different parishes into one organ- 
ization, who are crying out too many churches 
and too many ministers, — are not true to the 
facts of to-day. The novels of Charles M. 



160 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

Sheldon, notably his book, " The Miracle at 
Markham," exaggerate the prevailing situation, 
— particularly in the East. We do not need 
fewer denominations, or preachers or parishes, 
but more fellowship and unity of spirit among 
them. It were just as wise to unite all families, 
and have a universal domestic institution, in- 
stead of separate homes, united in love. Let 
us in this church year be true to our own, and 
we shall not be false to our friends in other 
churches. 

Furthermore, the fast changing estimate of 
the clergy has been thrown to the surface during 
the summer. Not that the present standard of 
ministerial estimates is, in all respects, less de- 
sirable, but it is certainly different, and the 
reasons for respecting clergymen are supported 
by new considerations. 

The celebration of " Old Home Week " in 
New Hampshire, just completed as I write, for 
which the Governor sent out invitations to all 
the scattered natives of the Granite State to 
come home, has given rise to many contrasts 
between the past and present. The long pas- 
torates, the prominence of the clergy in the 
communities, the old views once entertained by 
the people, and the former methods instituted 
for parish needs, make the change very marked. 



A MINISTERIAL AFTERMATH. 161 

On a drive to Dunbarton we inquired of a 
venerable gentleman, working by the roadside, 
what there was of interest to see there. He 
answered, " Wall," hesitating, as if making a 
mental search for the most important and inter- 
esting object, " wall, there's a minister there 1 " 
Whether the clergyman was regarded as a fos- 
silized curiosity, or took the place of Longfellow 
when the Englishman said, "As there are no 
ruins in America I thought I would come to 
see you," — I cannot say. But I think it was 
the lingering veneration for the minister of the 
Gospel. He was one to be sought out, with a 
demonstration of regard for his person and 
profession. 

Although there is no lack of respect to-day 
by self-respecting persons for faithful ministers, 
who have done long and fruitful service, yet it 
seemed in this case to spring out of sentiments 
peculiar to a past administration. We did not, 
I must confess, pay our regards to the beloved 
and venerated pastor, but we found out that his 
admiring parishioner had come nearer the truth 
than we imagined. There was a minister there, 
and very little else. A native of the town told 
me that Dunbarton contained no lawyer, no 
doctor, no saloon, no hotel, no steam cars, no 
electric cars, no telegraph, no telephone, and I 



162 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

presume no poorhouse. The " no's " in the re- 
cital had it, and reminded me of Tom Hood's 
poem on " No-vember." Under such circum- 
stances how the minister must be magnified in 
his office. And yet Dunbarton, as we may well 
imagine, has sent out many of her native pop- 
ulation to do honorable work in the world. 
One of the largest and most enthusiastic obser- 
vances of " Old Home Week " was held there. 
In that same hilltown the Hon. Carroll D. 
Wiight was born, and was expected to deliver the 
oration at the celebration. In the forties the 
town had a Universalist society, of which 
the Rev. Nathan R. Wright, father of the statis- 
tician, was pastor, and I talked with a gentle- 
man whose parents had been married by that 
minister in 1844. 

Fifty years ago the clergymen of these old 
towns were a power among the people. They 
were the educators of their time. One of them 
is recalled as fitting over a hundred young men 
for college, mostly for Dartmouth, some of them 
to become men of national reputation. On small 
salaries they educated their own sons — and 
generally there was a large band of them, with 
daughters to match — and sent them forth to 
fill successful and honorable positions. In 
those days nothing was too good for the minis- 



A MINISTERIAL AFTERMATH. 163 

ter, not even liquid sweetness long drawn out 
which the venerable dame poured into his coffee- 
cup. The woodchuck, as we hear repeated in 
these parts, must be caught to make meat for 
his dinner; and, if we may believe tradition, 
the chickens, when they saw his vehicle, lay 
down and crossed their legs as a ministerial 
sacrifice. At all events, these oft-told tales, 
which have become flat, stale and unprofitable, 
attest the hold that " the cloth " had in gener- 
ations past, and incidentally confirm the saying, 
" Them pious eats awful." No such exagger- 
ations of regard could arise in the present. The 
minister has become human, a part of society, 
more honored on the ground of an intelligent 
and sympathetic appreciation of his character 
and worth. The ministerial strength of the 
past, its intelligence and virtue, mingle with 
the softer, kindlier, more familiar graces of the 
present. 

And the changed condition better comports 
with the more hopeful ideas in religion that are 
more and more prevailing. At all events, what- 
ever the minister to-day accomplishes for char- 
acter and civilization, he must work out by 
different methods, and by appeals to different 
motives. If we have lost some things from the 
estimation in which ministers were held, we 



164 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

have introduced qualities more valuable for the 
religious work of the world. When the little 
girl shrank close to the side of her mother, and 
peeping out timidly asked, when the stern and 
dignified minister presented himself, u Ma mm a, 
is that Dod ? " he failed to represent the genial 
presence that took little children into its arms 
and blessed them. A child upon hearing that 
Jesus never smiled, remarked how could he 
help it when he said, " Suffer little children to 
come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of 
heaven.*' I suspect a combination of past and 
present elements in the minister would produce 
a result combining strength and dignity with 
sweetness and light. 

And the maintenance and associations of the 
clergy have changed no less than the standards 
of his character and work. The old records 
revived by the recent observances in New 
Hampshire have made a new impression of this 
general transformation. Everywhere the use 
of rum and cider on the high days of the church 
was conspicuous. Ordinations, dedications and 
installations, weddings and funerals, witnessed 
the custom, as well as town meetings, barn 
raisings and social gatherings. That venerable 
institution, the parson's donation party, made 
provision for " wetting the whistle." that was 



A MINISTERIAL AFTERMATH. 165 

also to serve as the trumpet of salvation. The 
stipulations as to income arranged for a speci- 
fied, amount of produce to supplement the cash 
factor in the salary. The Presbyterian Church 
in Bedford recently observed its one hundred 
and fiftieth anniversary, and the journey thither 
is through a mile of finely shaded road, known 
as " The Ministerial Woods," because in earlier 
days the minister was entitled to the use of its 
product for firewood, as one of his perquisites. 
We have come, in a comparatively few years, 
a long ways from the primitive customs of New 
England. Ministerial support to-day is picked 
up in different quarters, and not always in 
ways more dignified and commendable. Many 
humble places, too, in the Lord's vineyard, 
might find tillage now if more simplicity in liv- 
ing could be introduced into the ministry. 
Many of the present older clergy started in 
small parishes, with pinching incomes, and so 
saved the smaller churches. As they moved 
on to larger fields, others stood ready to do the 
work that they laid down. They took the 
smaller places as they opened, but were alive 
to " great expectations." 



166 THINGS WISE AND THEE WISE. 



XXI. 

ROVER AND I — MY SUMMER DOG. 

Rover belongs to the " Hillside," my vaca- 
tion home ; but when I return for the season he 
always knows me, and extends the most hearty 
greeting, jumping up on me, licking my face 
and hands, and changing his barking tone, upon 
his recognition of me, into a note of joy and 
welcome. From the time I arrive, through all 
the weeks of my stay, Rover is my dog, a con- 
stant companion in my walks and a never fail- 
ing friend. He remains indeed loyal to the 
family, and is the obedient servant of the par- 
ticular member whom he knows as his mistress 
and whose word he is expected to heed. If 
required, he attends her into the woods and 
fields berrying, as her vigilant body guard, but 
he almost invariably attends me on every expe- 
dition, giving tokens of delight when I start off, 
seizing a stick, and frisking about with it in 
his mouth, and making manifestations of de- 
light ; and upon my return takes his place at 
the door of my room for a rest, sometimes re- 



ROVER AND I — MY SUMMER DOG. 167 

maining there all night. For the other boarders 
he shows but little friendship, but always re- 
spect, if treated wisely and kindly. And so 
Rover becomes known among the visitors and 
residents as "my summer dog." 

In the morning he hastens to give me greet- 
ing as soon as his eye falls upon me, or he 
hears my footsteps on the piazza. There is no 
mistaking the " good-morning " that he means 
by the vigorous wagging of his tail and general 
friskiness of behavior. Rover is in part a 
shepherd dog, and has long reddish and black 
hair with a beautiful fox-like tail, and a very 
sprightly and intelligent expression. It is the 
general exclamation, " What a pretty dog ! ' 
He is very kind and affectionate, but very 
choice in the selection of his acquaintances. 
If he likes any one he is very expressive of 
delight at his presence. Upon his return from 
a drive or walk he gives his friend unmistak- 
able signs of pleasure. He has been known to 
recognize persons after several years' absence, 
which shows that dogs have good memories. 
He likes to play " catch " on the lawn, getting a 
stick or croquet-mallet in his mouth, and bend- 
ing down on his forefeet, with his bushy tail 
wagging like a plume in the air, and his eye 
intent on his competitor, ready upon his ap- 



168 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

proach to bound off or to spring aside, defeat- 
ing all attempts to dispossess him of the article 
in dispute. 

When he starts off to walk with me, he 
makes at once for some object that he can 
carry in his mouth, and with great spirit runs 
on ahead, as if he would show his desire to 
accomplish something or enter with zest upon 
the way before us ; or he varies this by jump- 
ing as high as he can under my outstretched 
arm, and this action he repeats from time to 
time during the walk, as a social recognition. 
In these ways he shows a feeling of companion- 
ship as well as by frequent glances of friendly 
recognition. 

He is fond of carrying articles for his attend- 
ant — to be trusted with a paper on returning 
from the post-office, or bearing a cane concern- 
ing which he seemed to evince a weighty sense 
of responsibility, moving along with great dig- 
nity, looking neither to the right hand nor the 
left, except occasionally to turn back his head 
to see if his companion is following ; where- 
upon hearing the words " All right, Rover," he 
jogs along in the unbroken trot. 

It is not always safe, however, to trust Rover 
with articles of value, for one day coming from 
the station I gave him, at his earnest solicita- 



BOVJER AND I — MY SUMMER DOG. 169 

tion, my umbrella to carry. He seemed to feel 
the greatest interest in the undertaking, looking 
back as usual for a word or nod of approval, 
until, getting on ahead where a bend in the road 
hid him from view, he must have taken the 
umbrella into the edge of the thick bushes 
by the roadside to get a moment's rest, and 
coming out at a point before we caught sight 
of him, we found that the article he had car- 
ried in his mouth was missing. The umbrella 
was never seen again, although diligent search 
was made for it, and Rover was besought to tell 
the whereabouts. He evidently belongs to a 
secret society. I did not soon hear the last of 
the lost umbrella. All sorts of jokes were 
made at my expense, and even a conundrum 
started by some one, " Why, if the lost umbrel- 
la shall be found, will it be better than ever; " 
the answer to which was, " Because it will be 
recovered ! " 

Rover, however, if he cannot always be 
trusted as an express agent for carrying pack- 
ages, which is really not the business of his 
dogship, is very faithful in looking after the 
cows and in helping to get them into the yard 
upon their return from pasture. As they have 
to cross the main road he takes his place at the 
south to head them off in that direction, and 



170 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

when the last cow is safely by, he hastens them 
along ; not infrequently getting hold of a dang- 
ling cow-tail, which results in his being swung 
to and fro in the air as the cow makes toward 
her destination to escape him. While faithful 
in this way as to the cows he is very careful 
not to fight the cats and kittens, but gives way 
quietly when they are around; it is plain to 
see, however, that he is a little jealous at the 
attentions paid to them. We can hardly ex- 
pect Rover to be better than some boys and 
girls. 

Rover is not an educated dog in playing 
tricks, but he willl take several steps on his 
hind feet with his head up in the air, will sing, 
will shake hands, carry articles from one person 
to another and put his great paws affectionately 
about the neck of his master and gaze very in- 
telligently into the human eyes, until being 
asked "What makes you look so silly?" he 
takes it as a hint that he had better resume his 
four-footed attitude. 

When a young dog, Rover went to visit a 
neighbor, living in a wild, wooded region where 
there were bears, and an older dog of the 
family took him into the forest where there 
was a bear-trap ; and Rover being careless got 
his fore-foot caught in the trap, and could not 



ROVER AND I— MY SUMMER DOG. 171 

get it out. The old dog ran home without 
him, and Rover was left out all night in that 
painful condition. The next morning a search- 
ing party found him caught in the bear-trap 
and almost exhausted. Fortunately no bones 
were broken, but it required a whole month to 
cure the leg, which "bears" the scar to this 
day. I do not know if Rover has had any more 
adventures of that kind, although the men 
about the house tell some wonderful bear 
stories. Some coons, however, have been very 
near the house this vacation, and Rover was 
taken out to hunt them ; but while he seemed 
very willing to enter into the excitement, and 
barked with all his might at the prospect of the 
game, his training did not fit him for that kind 
of work ; and although we frequently hear the 
coons, none, so far, have been caught. 



172 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 



XXII. 

GOSPEL 

Let not the vernacular twang of this title 
rule it out of the verbal court. It was born of 
the free, open, unlimited intercourse of our 
modern life. It is an outcome of the fact that 
the world is now becoming a great highway for 
the foot of man. It means that for travel and 
trade, pleasure and profit, the globe is a free 
field for human enterprise and energy. It signi- 
fies that man is at home everywhere, and that 
nothing that concerns humanity is to be put 
aside. If continued it will blot out the word 
"foreign" from the vocabulary, and usher in a 
cosmopolitan era with the motto, " My country 
is mankind." That this is the best spirit of the 
last decade, of the nineteenth century none will 
deny. 

Now this spirit is not only in the secularities 
of the times, it is also in its religious life. The 
doors are opening in all directions, making free 
highways to the ends of the earth. The Gospel 
herald compasses the globe. He has the " largest 



GOSPEL " GLOBE-TBOTTEBS." 173 

circulation on earth." He is working up to the 
old-time declaration, "the field is the world." 
He is thrilled by the Master's command, " Go 
ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to 
every creature." He is catching anew the spirit 
of Paul, the great Christian perambulator of the 
first century, as he heard the voice which said, 
"Come over and help us;" and after planting 
the Gospel standard at the centers of population 
in Asia Minor, he began a foreign mission in 
Europe, which, spreading through the Christian 
ages, compassed many lands, and in due time 
reached America and is blessing us to-day ; and 
having come to a hopeful period in civilization, 
invention, and national intercourse, it is now 
being carried to the ends of the earth. And so 
the old word of the Master is being fulfilled in 
new and varied ways. As a result of this 
world intercourse the word man has become 
deeper and broader than any type of man. I 
once heard a colored orator at a college com- 
mencement say, when the audience applauded 
his glowing sentiments, " I don't want to be 
honored as a black man, but as a black many 
Humanity is no longer an affair of color, clime, 
custom, costume, and language, but of under- 
lying elements and faculties that distinguish the 
whole human race. 



174 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

This was the conception of the Gospel from 
the beginning. Jesus showed it in that early 
foreign missionary movement at Jacob's Well, 
with one Samaritan woman for an audience, 
with never a word of complaint about the size 
of the congregation, to whom he made the grand 
announcement, good for any nationality, " God 
is a spirit," and sent her telling the welcome 
news to all her neighbors. Peter was taught 
the world-proportions of the Christian religion 
by the vision of the sheet. And out of this 
central principle and energy of Christianity has 
come every missionary movement of the world. 
It has started up the " globe-trotters " of all 
denominations, who go forth shod with the 
preparation of the Gospel of peace. No longer 
is this open intercourse of the nations for de- 
struction and conquest, but for civilization, 
fraternity, and human progress. 

When the historian Freeman visited the 
United States he wrote home, "America would 
be a very good country, if every Irishman would 
kill a negro and be hanged for it." But the 
Christian religion finds a better mission among 
the antagonistic children of the earth than 
mutual destruction. It roots out their ancient 
prejudices and passions, and shows them their 
common interest in a common brotherhood of 



GOSPEL "GLOBE-TROTTERS." 175 

man. It falls in with the ideas that give birth 
in this age to such words as " international," 
"arbitration," "reciprocity," " World's Fairs," 
"World's Congresses," "Parliaments of Re- 
ligion," " Ecumenical Councils," and the " Con- 
federation of the World." And so the principles 
of Christianity have grown into an expansive, 
all-embracing way of regarding mankind. The 
missionary idea, the ocean telegraph, the use of 
steam as a means of intercourse, a better knowl- 
edge of the literature of all peoples, a wider ac- 
quaintance with national peculiarities, larger 
information as to their religious systems, the 
interchange of commerce, the extended range of 
the modern traveler, — these are to-day the 
agencies and avenues which may be made to 
facilitate also the world-wide diffusion of Chris- 
tian truth. "I am a man, and deem nothing 
that relates to man foreign to my feelings." 

Why, all this is but an expression of the 
genius of the universal Gospel. It falls into 
its purpose to bless the human race. We begin 
to see here and there glimpses of the fulfillment 
of its plan to redeem the whole family of man. 
We get a little insight now and then as to how 
the result is at last to be brought about. 

We, of all others, believe in its ultimate com- 
plete victory. We chant " The earth is the 



176 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

Lord's and the fullness thereof," we sing " Fly 
abroad, ye mighty Gospel," and yet are looking 
on while commerce and statesmanship and 
science are reaping all the advantages of this 
freer intercommunication of the peoples of the 
earth ; and in fact seem to be pausing just now 
to consider whether we shall slam the only real 
foreign door that we have opened in the faces of 
our representatives. Do we want to have no 
part or lot in this globe-encompassing propensity 
of the present age ? Do we want to go back, 
fold our arms, and look on to see other denom- 
inations do all the work and get all the benefit 
of it? Do we mean to say that we have a. 
system of faith that has no applicability to the 
wants that are common to humanity? To 
take such a position is to introduce into our 
denomination at least one foreign custom, 
which Christianity ought to destroy everywhere, 
viz., the commission of hara-kiri. It is self- 
destruction, just as sure as the principle is 
true that to deny is to die, and to give is to 
live. 

We have certain religious ideas which are so 
broad and all-inclusive that we have christened 
them with the name " Universalism." And then 
we turn about and adopt a policy which brands 
them necessarily as local and provincial. We 



GOSPEL "GLOBE-TROTTERS" 177 

shout " Universal," " Universalism," « Uni- 
versal Love," "Universal Salvation," 
and then we are asked by some, as Dr. William 
Everett would say, " to deposit ourselves in a 
cavity " where no one outside of our own coun- 
try will ever see or hear tell of us. And all 
this in an age when the representatives of every 
other interest of life, and even the heralds of 
the narrow systems of faith which we denounce, 
have their banners everywhere on the frontiers 
of the world. 

If we can't keep that one door open that 
leads into the Japanese heart, let us take down 
the sign Universalism from the old stand, go 
out of this everlasting " Universal " business, 
and own up that we have been acting on the 
housekeeper's motto, " The bigger the sham, 
the greater the spread." 

When Dr. Bellamy lay dying he was greatly 
troubled lest, having " preached the Gospel to 
others, he himself should be a castaway." " My 
dear brother," said a friend, " if God should 
send you to hell, what would you do there ? " 
" I would," said he after a moment's thought, 
" I would organize a prayer-meeting at once. " 
An expression like that about the hell of the 
next world the Universalist Church always 
applauds, and rightly so; but to explore the 



178 THINGS WISE AXD OTHERWISE. 

present world for opportunities to help mankind 
is not always so stimulating. 

And if Japanese ideas, habits, and customs 
are really better than ours, as we are told, — 
which in some respects may be true, — then send 
out the missionaries by all means. If they 
can't take out anything from the Universalist 
Church, if, to use a nautical expression, we are 
obliged to go out as " empty bottoms," — with- 
out any religious cargo, — then bring back 
something of value, and so let us be benefited 
in that way. Doubtless in some respects the 
intercourse may be made mutually beneficial. 
Missionaries are good even as mediums of com- 
munication. Let us have them as ministers 
from the court of Heaven to the court of the 
Orient. We who talk so much about the 
brotherhood of the race ought either to get or 
give, or both. Let " no pent-up L^tica contract 
our powers " when we have inscribed on our 
flag, " The whole boundless universe is ours." 

We hear the cry of "heathen at home." 
Some of the home heathen are shouting it the 
loudest, and so manage to give nothing to either 
enterprise. But this is not always the case. 
What we want to accomplish in our denomina- 
tional method is to utilize every variety of 
talent and interest. By this arrangement the 



GOSPEL " GLOBE-TROTTERS." 179 

heathen at home will enlist some persons, and 
the heathen abroad others. The result will be 
the planting of many Christian centers of many- 
kinds, and working out towards each other the 
' k globe-trotters " will finally meet and clasp 
hands round the world. 



180 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 



XXIII. 

THE CHACK OF THE SPORTSMAN. 

Should any one look into the Mechanics' 
Building in Boston as I am penning these lines, 
he would see that copious structure transformed 
into the " Sportsmen's Show " now attracting 
great throngs to look upon its wonders. It is 
astonishing to behold the extent and variety of 
objects associated with the world of sports. 
On every hand are the suggestions of forest, 
field, and stream. Animals, fishes, and birds 
are on exhibition. Bowling, balling, boating, 
bicycling, boxing, and all the other "B's " that 
make up the range of popular recreations, salute 
you on every hand. Tennis, croquet, golf, polo, 
are suggested ; swimming, skating, and racing 
mingle in one grand display; scenery, decora- 
tions, pictures, hunting contrivances, camps and 
camp materials, and other articles too tedious to 
mention, as the auctioneers say, have turned the 
whole interior of the Mechanics' Building into 
an aggregation of sporting facts and facilities. 
One might think that there was nothing else 



THE CRACK OF THE SPORTSMAN. 181 

in the world but the quest of pleasure, that 
athletics and its kindred pursuits had taken the 
place of. all the other interests of mankind, and 
that the crack of the sportsman attracted more 
attention in our modern civilization than the 
crack of doom did in the old-time theology. 
When a certain minister of dim vision was 
reading in the Bible and called the patriarchs, 
partridges, it was said to be making " game " 
of those ancient worthies. Verily the New 
England Sportsmen's Association has been 
showing how to make game on an enormous 
scale. So far as we know, it is wholly a novel 
undertaking. 

Has, then, this Sportsmen's Show nothing to 
teach on the moral and religious side of life ? 
Here is manifested a constantly increasing 
absorption in the recreations of society. The 
world is certainly growing on that side, what- 
ever may be said of any other. Facilities for 
amusement everywhere abound, and zeal for 
their improvement prevails in all classes of 
society. There never was a time when oppor- 
tunities for recreative pursuits were so common 
and convenient as to-day. A large part of 
literature, the drama, music, yea, even of re- 
ligion, ministers in one way or another to the 
rage for entertainment. A recent article in 



182 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

" Harper's Monthly " recalls the time when the 
substantial lyceum lecture gratified a popular 
demand. The names and pictures of the 
famous lecturers, including our own Chapin, 
who in those days commanded public attention, 
are presented. But all this has given place to 
lighter varieties which minister to a passing 
gratification. The stage seldom offers the 
standard plays, but deals in light presentations 
supported by catching music and scenic 
attractions. 

It has recently been discovered by a dramatic 
critic that Hamlet, the "melancholy Dane," 
has the element of amusement in him, and 
it has been predicted that in the future the 
great classics of Shakespeare will be so handled 
as to provoke the risibles of the playgoers. 
The administration of religion, too, is feathered 
with pleasantries to attract and enliven. We 
know how far education has also become 
mingled with the prevailing sports. It is one 
of the live questions with college faculties and 
trustees how to relate them to the common 
educational requirements. To some of the 
rising generation athletics are the supreme 
interests in university life. I knew of a boy 
of ten years, who, upon being asked if after a 
while he were going to Harvard, replied, " No, 



THE CRACK OF THE SPORTSMAN. 183 

I don't believe I can ever play baseball well 
enough to go to that college." Another lad, 
who was asked what made him think his father 
never went to college, answered scornfully, 
"He doesn't know a half-back from a center 
rush ! " From this state of things it is apparent 
that the crack of the sportsman is not only 
heard in field and forest, but in every depart- 
ment of our civilization. 

Far be it from me to visit this state of things 
with unqualified condemnation. It indicates a 
wide-spread and in many respects a beneficent 
change which is now proceeding in our physical 
and social life. It is the result in part of the 
relief of the human mind from the bondage of 
old-time religious views. The trend of religion 
is toward magnifying the present life, making 
more of the physical nature, and emphasizing 
the fact that salvation is the development of 
the whole being. We no longer regard it as the 
purpose of life " to escape from hell and fly to 
heaven," or give the boy's version of the old 
catechism that " the chief end of man is to glo- 
rify God and annoy him forever," or to annoy 
ourselves or each other, either. Well may 
Maurice Thompson ask, in a recent article on 
De Quincey, " Does salvation depend upon re- 
fusing to smile when you are amused ? Must 



184 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

the human being wither, deny its functions, die 
a mummy, in order to nourish in heaven ? " 

It cannot be denied, and it ought to be spoken 
to its credit, that a more cheerful theology has 
made this world a good deal better and brighter 
place in which to live. It no longer sets its 
tune to the old words, " Hark ! from the tombs 
a doleful sound," but gives new emphasis and 
broader meaning to the line, " Religion never 
was designed to make our pleasures less." It 
neither denounces the crack of the sportsman 
nor the crack of a joke, at right times and in 
wise proportion. The Church does not array 
itself against amusements. It recognizes their 
naturalness and legitimacy. It broadens the 
conception of religion to make it include the 
body and the social faculties. It finds far more 
of Christianity in the healthy and happy exer- 
cise of all our faculties, in the use and enjoy- 
ment of life and nature, than in moanings and 
groanings over an angry God and endless 
perdition. 

Nevertheless, this new world wherein dwell- 
eth pleasures, and for which our brighter faith 
is somewhat responsible, brings to us fresh 
obligations and opportunities. There is a 
wide sphere of usef ulness for the ministry and 
church, in directing, limiting, refining, propor- 



THE CRACK OF THE SPORTSMAN. 185 

tioning the amusements of life. They must 
be confined to their appropriate place, and not 
monopolize too much time and energy. Life 
must find its proper balance between recreation 
and helpful service. Too great absorption in 
pleasure is to defeat the very end of pleasure. 
To get health and enjoyment from the bicycle, 
for example, it is not necessary to secularize all 
the hours of the Sabbath, and neglect every re- 
ligious and social obligation. In that case the 
bicycle rides the man, and not the man the 
bicycle. We do not want to be engrossed in 
it to the extent of the judge who, when a victim 
of the bicycle thief was testifying, and remarked 
incidentally, " That wheel, judge, was the finest 
on the market," told him to stop. " I'll fine 
you ten dollars," he exclaimed, " for contempt. 
This court rides the finest wheel on the market." 
Or the Sunday-school superintendent who said 
severely to a member, " Robert, I didn't see 
you in Sunday school yesterday." " No, sir," 
returned that devotee of the popular Sunday 
sport, " I was out on my wheel." " How were 
the roads ? " anxiously inquired the now thor- 
oughly aroused superintendent. A gentleman 
whose numerous sons and daughters had been 
provided for in this respect, at great expense, 
remarked that he had the bicycle pocket-book, 



186 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

and that it was badly punctured. The same 
will apply to other expensive forms of amuse- 
ment. They must come under the law of mod- 
eration. Wisdom lies at the mean between the 
two extremes. Religion must urge upon the 
devotees of pleasure the claims of the higher 
interests of life. 

Furthermore, the church has a mission in ex- 
alting and purifying the very idea of recreation. 
The coarser round of pleasure is not the only 
sphere of interest. Why should we identify 
amusement with certain sports that now attract 
almost undivided attention ? So far as they are 
needful to physical culture they are justifiable. 
But as contests involving coarse, rough usage, 
brutal attacks, injurious scrambles, provocative 
of bad feelings both mentally and physically, — 
why should they, by pre-eminence, be entitled 
to the designation of sports ? No wonder the 
cognomen " a sport " has come to signify a light, 
empty, adventurous character. It is the degra- 
dation of a good name. 

And let us not forget that there are pleas- 
ures for other types of life, in art, music, litera- 
ture, scientific investigations, and in commu- 
nion with nature. There is a book of pleasure 
that never once mentions any of the popular 
sports of to-day. It presents in one volume 



THE CRACK OF THE SPORTSMAN. 187 

Campbell's " Pleasures of Hope," Akenside's 
Pleasures of the Imagination," and Rogers's 
" Pleasures of Memory." These " pleasures " 
never drew a crowd around a bulletin board 
in Newspaper Row, nor fanned the flame for 
gambling, nor painted the town red. But they 
have regaled many a weary spirit, and prepared 
it for the great battles of life. 

Nor could we ever feel quite reconciled to 
the identification of sport with the infliction 
of suffering and death. This was brought 
home forcibly at the Sportsmen's Show. That 
it is necessary to destroy the lives of bird, beast 
and fish to provide for mankind may be con- 
ceded. But why any person should derive 
sport from this necessary suffering, it is hard 
to tell. Said a man to his companion one 
bright morning, " What a glorious day ! Let's 
go out and kill something." A man of color 
came to the police station of a Monday morn- 
ing to inquire for his son, and gave the officer 
a description of that sable individual. The 
chief of police told him that there was a per- 
son answering that description arrested the 
night before for breaking up a meeting with an 
axe-helve. "Dat's him, dat's him," broke in the 
anxious father, "dat's him, he said he was 
going out to 'muse hisself." Religion has a 



188 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

work in elevating and toning the amusements 
of the people. If Capt. Sigsbee of the ill-fated 
" Maine " was, as the papers reported (upon 
which you may always rely^), attending a bull- 
fight in Havana the Sunday before the explosion, 
he did what probably many other excellent people 
have done out of curiosity, or for the study of 
foreign customs. But if he derived any pleas- 
ure from it, or saw it as anything other than a 
painful and repulsive spectacle, which presum- 
ably he did not, his ideas of amusement need to 
be reformed. 

The fundamental rule for all kinds of sport, 
is that it send us back to the necessary pursuits 
of life with mind and muscle strengthened and 
refreshed. The conditions of healthfulness and 
morality must be observed. We must be glad 
to escape from the needed recreation in due 
time, and to take up again the burdens and 
duties of life. The good-hearted German had 
it right when he was asked, " Well, how did you 
like the sports ? " and answered, " I was so 
glad to get home again that I was glad I 
went." 

It is an important work of the church to 
recognize, foster, limit and direct the amuse- 
ments of the people, to lift them out of un- 
worthy associations, and this work can only be 



THE CRACK OF THE SPORTSMAN. 189 

accomplished by the broadest sympathies and 
the most patient training. Let not religion be 
divorced from recreation. Then the crack of 
the sportsman will not prove a crack (in an- 
other sense) to divide the faculties and inter- 
ests of mankind. 



190 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 



XXIV. 

NATURE IN MINIATURE. 

The village is frequently an objective point 
in the summer outing. Happy is the rural 
situation where the way thither leads along a 
highway bordered by the beauty which the 
Great Spirit loves to scatter along the human 
pathway ; and happy are the eyes that can see 
and the mind that can appreciate the signifi- 
cance of the lovely scene. The walk to the 
village is scarcely more than a mile, but by a 
road that bends gracefully first to the right, 
then to the left, and afterward to the right 
again, in curves that are the embodiment of 
grace. The middle portion of the way runs 
through a wooded region, which makes the 
walk shady and cool. The spirit of silence 
lingers in the air, and the footsteps instinctively 
halt for a moment of communion with the invis- 
ible life, the phenomena of which are every- 
where seen, while the living and abiding essence 
is undiscoverable to mortal eye. 

Beyond the shade-giving trees that flank the 



NATURE IN MINIATURE. 191 

way, run ranges of hills, and farther on rise 
the higher peaks of the mountains, but by the 
leafy village road we seem shut into a side 
chapel for meditation and communion with a 
bit of creation which shows us nature in minia- 
ture. God is revealed in small things as in 
great. The microcosm or little world is no less 
wonderful than the macrocosm or great world. 

We are amazed at what is crowded into this 
limited space by the roadside ; what marvelous 
beauty, what variety of form, clusters and com- 
binations, what objects in geology, in botany, in 
arboriculture, in entomology, in ornithology ! 
We long for special knowledge in these depart- 
ments of science, in order to understand and 
classify the forms that we behold. We are 
grateful, however, that an appreciation of their 
use and beauty, the suggestions of a loving 
Providence, and the higher lessons of faith and 
worship, need not be lost by the lowliest mind. 

In the roadside miniature are mirrored all 
the laws and principles of the universe. It is 
Tennyson's "flower in the crannied wall." 
Could we know it all, and all in all, we should 
know what God means, and what all things in 
nature mean ; for, as some one observes, if we 
could but see behind the veil, and note the 
secret movement, we should be amazed at its 



192 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

simplicity, and exclaim in wonder, " Is that 
all?" 

As we stop to gaze at some spot by the way, 
displaying a group of beautiful plants, we are 
impressed with the wisdom and love that make 
the common highway, by which men go to their 
daily toil, or on practical and monotonous 
errands, such a scene of life and loveliness. 
In the adjoining fields and orchards are the 
grain and fruit for the sustenance of man ; but 
the Infinite Provider has not only a purpose of 
lower utility, but combines it with the higher 
ses the tics to minister to the mind. Even the 
processes of decay are made, in the transitions 
of nature, opportunities for new display of 
beauty and life. The trunk of the fallen tree, 
as it obeys the inevitable law of earth to earth, 
and ashes to ashes, becomes the habitation of 
new growths, that turn its decay into exquisite 
grace and loneliness. A single tree-trunk, dec- 
orated by the skill of the Great Artist, presents 
a spectacle of wonder and delight. The moss 
that covers its moldering fibers is the shroud of 
velvet provided for the final change. It is 
varied in color and form, and with its delicate 
texture springs the running plant, whose lace- 
like traceries and minute leaves present living 
sprays which mock the skill of the best-trained 



NATUBE IN MINIATURE. 193 

human hand. Blushing berries, scattered here 
and there among the vines and mosses, com- 
plete the variegated garb with which the higher 
wisdom conceals the great change which we 
call death, but which everywhere leads to new 
life. 

The same process of beautifying and utiliz- 
ing the passing forms is seen in the unsightly 
stump by the wayside from which as a throne 
the monarch of the forest has fallen. Observe 
its moss-covered sides, and, springing from its 
top, the infant tree which draws its greenness 
and grace from the fast-rooted pedestal upon 
which the old-time giant has swung its arms in 
a thousand storms. What a " stump speaker," to 
be sure, and what an eloquent story of struggle 
and progress, and times and seasons, and cloud 
and sunshine, it might declare of its predecessor 
whose vacated place it is seeking to fill. 

In this miniature of nature is found the 
rugged rock, softened into attractiveness by the 
deft fingers of the designer of uncounted pat- 
terns, of whom Jesus said, " My Father worketh 
hitherto." He still works, and works still, as 
He turns off the old miracle for new eyes. 
From the granite surface rises the pine or elm 
or maple, throwing its roots down the sides of 
the stony life-bearer to find the needed nourish- 



194 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

ment below. It is surprising what work Nature 
will do to prevent the defeat of her purpose. 
She does seem indeed, as the poet says, " care- 
less of the single life" and "careful of the 
type ; " but she is not devoid of interest in the 
single life, as the struggling form upon the 
flinty rock attests. 

Such are a few lineaments in this miniature 
of nature, as we behold it from the village road- 
side. How much is gathered in its limited 
enclosure ! What hours and even weeks might 
be given to its study ! What principles and 
poetry does it enshrine! What lessons of near 
but neglected objects does it present ; and how 
it shows forth the wisdom of God, in the 
feathery fern, the stately goldenrod, and the 
humble buttercup ! All Thy works praise Thee 
— the picture framed by the wayside, as well as 
the broad canvas of the mountains and the ex- 
panse of the starry firmament. 



A RAINY-DAY EXCHANGE. 



XXV. 

A RAINY-DAY EXCHANGE. 

It was my lot, last Sunday, to exchange 
with a clergyman residing in a city twenty 
miles from Boston. The day proved to be the 
most rainy day of the season. The distance to 
be traveled required an early start, and I had 
an opportunity to study what was going on in 
the streets. And there is a good deal more 
going on than many late sleepers of a Sunday 
morning know anything about. Perhaps some 
of them know only by faith, that the sun rises 
any earlier than they do themselves. Early 
rising, it is true, is not the demand that it once 
was. With good reason, too, without doubt, for 
to justify the early rising, we must balance it 
with early retiring, not forgetting either part of 
the familiar couplet, — 

" Early to bed and early to rise 
Makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise." 

But not many are nowadays given to over- 
much zeal, in this respect, in early Sunday 



196 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

hours. One thing observed in the young day 
was, that the sidewalks were thronged with 
men and women. The rain poured down, but 
the hastening crowd moved forward, as if rush- 
ing to hear the latest war news, or feel the 
newest social, political, or military sensation. 
Waterproofs, umbrellas, and rubbers were in 
abundant requisition, to enable them to stand 
the storm and to reach the object of their 
desire. But they seemed to be all there never- 
theless. I took in the situation immediately. 
They were good Christians, hastening at that 
early hour, through the rain, to attend their 
church. I did not, however, mistake them for 
Protestant Christians. They bore in their 
hands books of prayer, which I fear we do not 
often do, and, no doubt, an offering for the sup- 
port of worship, which we sometimes do, and 
had left comfortable quarters for the rainy 
streets. Moreover, they seemed bright and 
cheerful, chatted mildly with each other, with 
now and then a gentle ripple of laughter, and 
seemed altogether happy in the anticipated ser- 
vice. These Catholic brethren and sisters were 
honoring their faith and Church, according to 
their understanding, and perhaps never once 
thought of varying attendance upon their ser- 
vices by reason of heat or cold, wet or dry. 



A RAINY-DAY EXCHANGE. 197 

They must be attended to, just as the daily 
duty or the family obligation. It was a recog- 
nized part of their personal relationship. They 
observed it early, promptly, regularly. 

The contrast of all this to the average Protes- 
tant congregation on a rainy day (or indeed any 
other day) is not assuring, although many of 
our people do exceedingly well, and did in 
the two congregations of last Sunday. The 
great mass of Protestants, however, are only 
too ready to take the slightest meteorological 
hint to absent themselves from religious ser- 
vices. They seldom give the church the benefit 
of the doubt. The latest magazine or story, the 
comfortable lounge, the Sunday paper, the just 
now " unfragrant Havana " and the journal of 
fashion, are too powerful, on a rainy Sunday, to 
save the congregation from decimation. The 
seats of the sanctuary, in one respect at least, 
remind us of wisdom's way, displaying "here 
and there a traveler." The Protestant minis- 
ter has to fall back upon the declaration of 
John Quincy Adams, who, when he stoodalmost 
alone in Congress, upon being asked when he 
expected to be in the majority, answered, " when 
votes are weighed and not counted." The 
minister comforts himself with the thought that 
the rainy day, at least, brings out the cream of 



198 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

the parish, and that the interest, loyalty, atten- 
tion, and intelligence of his small congregation, 
are compensations for its lack of material size. 
In the high sense of character and consecration 
it may count for much, and is the day of small 
things that is not to be despised. He feels 
about it as the husband did whose wife tipped 
the beam at two hundred and fifty, and who, 
upon being asked by a stranger if he had a 
large family, replied, " Yes, large, but not numer- 
ous." He gains satisfaction from the reflection 
that James Martineau preached to scores, where 
Charles H. Spurgeon preached to thousands, 
and avers that Catholic ignorance, superstition, 
and fear will naturally bring out larger congre- 
gations on rainy days, than will Protestant in- 
telligence, freedom, and character. 

But somehow there lurks in this argument a 
subtle but fatal admission. Are we to believe, 
that as people increase in intelligence, freedom, 
and character, the claims of religion upon their 
loyalty and service become lessened ? I confess 
that I get precious little inspiration from a con- 
sideration like that. Is there no way in which 
to present the truths of a liberal religion so as 
to induce self-sacrifice, devotion, and fidelity? 
Why do not the great mass of liberal thinkers 
imitate the Catholics of last Sunday morning, 



A RAINY-DAT EXCHANGE. 199 

and, notwithstanding a down-pour of rain, fill 
the seats of our churches ? Those worshipers 
who hurried through the inclement weather 
were almost invariably poor in this world's 
goods, and returned at the close of the service 
to household and other duties. They are far 
less favorably fixed in life than Protestants, and 
are not so well provided with personal apparel 
as our average worshipers, — and yet note the 
contrast in fidelity in this particular. Is it not 
very largely a matter of training, of habit, yea, 
of heredity ? for such virtues get into the blood, 
and crop out as any other trait of family, na- 
tional, or religious life comes to the surface 
from generation to generation. We cannot 
accept the conclusion that a true religion, if 
properly held and wrought into the web and 
woof of the generations, will not bring forth 
better results than a false religion. There is 
something the matter with our administration 
of the truths that we hold. 

I remember a liberal clergyman, who coming 
to his church of a stormy morning, and finding 
the sexton the only other attendant, said to him, 
" Well, are we to be the whole congregation? " 
received the answer, "And we would not be 
here, if we were not salaried men." Not unlike 
Sydney Smith, who, finding himself of a rainy 



200 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

Sunday with a single hearer, and unable to use 
the established formula of worship, beginning, 
" Dearly beloved brethren," etc., adapted it to 
the first name of his single hearer, and said, 
" Dearly beloved Roger, the Scripture moveth 
us in sundry places," etc., etc. We are never 
so badly off as this ; but instead of a limited 
attendance upon Protestant churches on rainy 
Sundays, all persons in good health, and with 
protecting rainy-day costumes, ought to delight 
to go in company to the house of God. We 
uniformly dress too well and are too careful of 
our clothes. 

The sacred writers were not so terrified at the 
falling drops from the clouds, but made them 
beautiful symbols of the divine word, as they 
saw it falling on the heart, like showers upon 
the mown grass. The rain that filleth the pools 
is closely associated with those who go from 
strength to strength, as every one of them in 
Zion appeareth before God. The presence of 
the people at such times promotes unity and 
fellowship in the congregation, gives inspiration 
to the preacher, and affords also a wider circu- 
lation to the notices of the week evening ser- 
vices. A rainy day affects not only the Sunday 
congregations, but all the appointments of the 
week. The church is as much dependent upon 



A RAINY-DAY EXCHANGE. 201 

the weather as the farmer and the mariner. Let 
the Protestants get a lesson from the Catholics 
in this respect; and although we cannot do as 
the urchin wished, have hanging from the sky 
a rain cord and a snow cord, that when he 
wanted either he might give the appropriate 
pull, we can control the cords of purpose, con- 
quer atmospheric conditions, by lifting ourselves 
above them, and so go into the sanctuary sing- 
ing unto the Lord, who prepareth rain for the 
earth. 



202 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 



XXVI. 

" STANDING ON AND GETTING IN ON." . 

An incident said to have been told by Speaker 
Reed has been doing service around Boston of 
late. It relates to a passenger on a train, who 
persisted in riding on the platform. The con- 
ductor was equally persistent that he should not, 
ordering him to a seat in " the department of 
the interior." The passenger, becoming indig- 
nant, said, " Why should I go in ? is not a plat- 
form to stand on?" "No," rejoined the 
conductor, " it is to get in on." 

The incident went to show the use sometimes 
made of political platforms. They are not 
always for the party to stand on, but to catch 
votes in order that it may get into office. They 
are made elastic, or palter in a double sense, and 
are construed differently in different sections, 
becoming in wrong ways all things to all men. 
But no matter in what way it may be taken by 
the people, after securing enough votes to get in 
on, it is little concern whether it be stood on 
or not. 



"STANDING ON AND GETTING IN ON." 203 

This, however, can hardly be called a moral 
use of a party platform. We can scarcely claim 
for it even the merit of the axiom which a poli- 
tician declared governed his actions : " First, get 
on ; second, get honor ; and third, get honest." 
The last, I fear, may never come. The question 
has recently been raised whether this method of 
using a platform, not for standing on, but for 
getting in on, or rather for keeping in on, is any 
more to be approved in religion than in politics. 
One of our able clergymen, in an address, has 
lately pointed out that it is not. It does not 
accord with intellectual honesty and sincerity. 
The ring of genuineness in all such cases is 
wanting, and it falls on the ear, flat, feeble, and 
fallacious. The process is that of trying to ride 
at one time two horses moving in opposite 
directions. It is not that the theological eques- 
trian has reached a point in the ring somewhat 
less advanced than the liberal truths that he is 
affecting, being careful at the same time to 
" keep in," but that in reality he is heading the 
other way. The principles of the platform and 
the principles of the pulpit revolve in different 
directions. If true to the one, he must be false 
to the other. The dodge so often resorted to in 
politics, known as " straddling," is in this case 
not practicable. 



204 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

It is indeed possible on some questions to 
adopt one of various shades of opinion, but not 
where propositions are self-contradictory and 
exclusive of each other. I believe there are 
" white blackbirds," but there never was, and 
never can be, a liberal orthodox. He may be 
liberal, but in so far as he is liberal, he is not 
orthodox. He may hold his orthodoxy in such 
a way as to get in on it, but never so as to be a 
consistent defender of it. A gentleman re- 
marked that Mr. A. was a very broad man. 
" Yes," was the reply, " broad indeed ; broad 
enough to straddle any possible political or 
religious question." If so-called breadth in 
theological thinking is to signify capacity to 
spread the mind over a contrariety of irrecon- 
cilable tenets, it is a question whether we shall 
be greatly helped by much of what is known as 
progressive faith. It disintegrates the moral 
sense. 

Precisely this would seem to be the result of 
the recent advice by Dr. Lyman Abbott to the 
liberal thinkers in the evangelical pulpits. He 
practically counsels all such to use the platform 
to " keep in on." They may not believe it, need 
not preach it, are not required to stand on it, 
but it is their duty, having once gotten in on it, 
to keep on staying in. " We say," are his words, 



STANDING ON AND GETTING IN ON." 205 

" to every liberal minister," in a conservative 
church, " Stay where you are and preach the 
truth, as God gives you to see the truth, without 
fear, without favor, without wrath or bitterness." 
Some liberal ministers are apparently taking 
this advice. They " keep in " the great denom- 
inations, the influential churches, move with the 
popular currents, where honors and emoluments 
are many, and quietly ignore all the distinctive 
theology of the " Saybrook Platform," or the 
" Westminster platform," or other platforms on 
the remoter edges of which they stand, and so 
manage to meet all the requirements of a transi- 
tional age. It has been said that a progressive 
minister in the old church to-day is quietly 
asked which he would prefer, a trial for heresy 
or a trip to Europe. This policy of keeping in, 
although hitherto widely and quietly practiced, 
had not been formulated and vindicated, until 
Dr. Abbott gave it expression. 

It can hardly be called a " new departure," 
inasmuch as the " dear departed's " remains are 
very much in evidence. He is not unlike his 
porkship, who went through an aperture in " a 
worm fence " that was so crooked he found 
himself, after he had gone through, in the same 
enclosure. Little wonder is it, that men like 
the Rev. Mi not J. Savage and Mr. Edwin D. 



206 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

Mead, who accept the positions logically im- 
plied in their principles, should have borne tes- 
timony against this advice by Dr. Abbott, of so 
aiming the theological fire-arms as to" hit it if 
it's a deer, and miss it if it's a calf ; " and that 
they put a new emphasis upon honesty of con- 
viction. The latter, however, fully demolishes 
the sophistries designed to support such prac- 
tices on the part of liberal ministers in the old 
churches. "The new truth," says Mr. Mead, 
" knocked at the door — every reformer began 
by trying to reform his own circle ; but in each 
case it collided with the creed. The creed 
would not accommodate it, it would not bend 
to the creed ; and so because it was honest, it 
had to go outside and create its own institu- 
tions. . . . The question is not as to the duty 
of the old church, but as to the duty of the 
new truth." 

Would that the liberal ministers who are 
using the platform for getting in on, and keep- 
ing in on, had the conscience of the biblical 
sailor, who refused to accept a proffered place 
on a schooner, for the reason that it was 
against the Scripture and would imperil his 
soul. "How so?" he was asked, and gave 
the reply, " Don't the good book say you must 
not serve two masters ? " The liberal orthodox 



"STANDING ON AND GETTING IN ON." 207 

schooner is one of the two masters, and it cannot 
be conscientiously served, as the old Scotchman 
would say, " without joombling the joodgment 
and confoonding the sense." 



208 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 



XXVII. 

SUMMER THEOLOGY. 

Theological reading is probably not much 
patronized while the dog-star rages. And it is 
a question whether clergymen should not eschew 
it entirely, so as to get a complete change of 
mental atmosphere. But if one keeps at all in 
sympathy with current thoughts and events, he 
cannot but note occasionally the trend of re- 
ligious ideas. While the vacation moderates 
church activities at the great centers of popu- 
lation, it seems to increase them in remoter 
localities, and gives to other communities the 
opportunity to hear a larger Gospel from the 
lips of some of its. most eloquent and distin- 
guished heralds. It is worth while to note the 
tone of these summer messages, and to glance 
also at the columns of the religious press, with 
a view to discover the change that has silently 
gone on in the spirit of modern preaching. To 
refer to this may be the more pardonable in 
view of the fact that it is so common, at this 
season of the year, for the regular contributors 



SUMMER THEOLOGY. 209 

to the religious press to occupy the columns of 
the denominational weeklies with homilies on 
the lessons of nature, or recitals of their vacation 
experiences in the country, which of course are 
most largely read by dwellers on the farms, or 
in the villages, who are perfectly familiar with 
all the scenes and associations so diligently 
described. This is sometimes well, as new 
eyes may see new meanings in old forms and 
processes. 

" The Watchman " of a few weeks ago pub- 
lished a sermon by Dr. Parkhurst which expressed, 
in the most urgent and convincing manner, the 
important truth that the loving purpose of God 
will never let go its hold upon any soul. The 
principle was so stated as to leave but one im- 
pression, if taken in the necessary and legitimate 
meaning of the words, viz., that evil shall finally 
be overcome by good in the moral universe. 
The editor of " The Watchman " was asked not 
long ago whether he was an optimist or a pessim- 
ist, and he replied, neither, that he was an 
I ameliorist," and looked at things just as they 
were. This is what the Universalist does, who 
is the optimist in the theological sense ; he sees 
the existence and stubbornness of evil, but be- 
lieves, as Dr. Parkhurst seems to in his saner 
moments, that good, having the Almighty on its 



210 THIXGS WISE AXD TREE WISE. 

side, will, by retribution and the supremacy of 
moral power, not be defeated in the great con- 
test. The ameliorist is a kind of " middle of the 
road man," leaving the contest of the ages a 
drawn battle. 

The Rev. Dr. \[oxorn, in his summer sermon in 
the Nahant Congregationalist Church, seems to 
have a somewhat more positive conviction as to 
the matter, but if pressed to the legitimate con- 
clusions of his words, would, no doubt, find a 
way out consistent with his orthodoxy. They 
all do. Dr. Moxoni is reported to have said, 
" The sinner is punished in order that he may 
be no longer a sinner. If sin were a permanent 
and remediless evil, then the only rational 
treatment of it would be its extermination, but 
God's judgment on sin is a ground of hope." 
This is the right philosophy of sin and penalty, 
though somewhat obscurely expressed, for it 
renders punishment not a ground of despair, 
but of hope for reformation. 

These just principles of belief seem to be 
indigenous to the uncorrupted human mind, as 
illustrated in an article of a few weeks ago en- 
titled " Conversations With Educated Hindoos,*' 
by Rev. John Henry Barrows, D.D. It will be 
remembered that Dr. Barrows was the presiding 
genius of the World's Parliament of Religions, 



SUMMER THEOLOGY. 211 

and has lately been in the Orient on an impor- 
tant religious mission. This has brought him 
in contact with leading representatives of the 
great religious systems. He had an interview, 
among others, with a prominent Pundit, who, 
at the conclusion of the conversation, said to 
Dr. Barrows, " Before you go, I want you to 
assure us that you think that all men will finally 
be saved. We Hindoos all believe this." Dr. 
Barrows, who has figured as a man of broad 
and liberal ideas, being thus unequivocally 
arraigned, was not equal to the situation. His 
reply was, " My Master does not encourage me 
to cherish such a hope. I do entertain a hope, 
however, for some who have not heard of the 
historic Christ. There are minds like that of 
Socrates, naturally Christian. If I do not 
meet Socrates in heaven, I think it may be be- 
cause I have not kept in the right road myself." 
The Hindoo, in this instance, would seem to 
have the better Christian faith. It is hard for 
some minds to break through the inconsistencies 
and limitations of the old religious ideas. But 
Dr. Lyman Abbott has the most difficulty in 
posing as a liberalist, while managing to keep 
himself inside the evangelical lines. Evidently 
too much is made of him, as a leader of religious 
thought. His position theologically is hard to 



212 THIXGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

discover. This is evinced by "The Outlook" of 
July 24. A correspondent writes him, " Please 
state on what Bible promises you base the hope 
of the final salvation of the whole human race ? 
If men reject Christ here, how do we know 
they will turn to him there ? If men ivill not 
be saved, can God save them? It seems that 
would only be changing the question of election 
from a part to the whole — saved because God 
willed it. Then why the urgent sacrifice of 
the Son of God? Kindly consider." These 
questions show a crude notion of salvation, 
election, and atonement, and indicate a large 
work yet to be accomplished by our Church in 
enlightening the minds of even the intelligent 
class of Orthodox believers. 

But Dr. Abbott's answer to these queries 
manifests in some respects a corresponding lack 
of understanding, and shows him as one who 
" sees men as trees walking." He replied to 
his correspondent as follows : " If by the sal- 
vation of the human race, you mean the attain- 
ment of everlasting blessedness by every hu- 
man being that has ever lived, we are not 
aware that the Bible promises it. What is 
directly promised is that the universe of exist- 
ing beings will ultimately be brought into 
harmony with God. (Col. i. 20 ; Phil. xi. 10.) 



SUMMER THEOLOGY. 213 

Moreover, Jesus set forth the principle that God 
evermore seeks to save the lost. (Luke xv.) 
Of course no man can be saved who will not 
submit to be saved. But we cannot say that 
the human power of resistance is as unlimited 
as the divine power of persuasion. On the 
other hand, we cannot deny that stubborn indul- 
gence in destructive sin may, in the nature of 
things, eat out of a man every germ of hope 
for recovery. The whole subject, therefore, as 
regards individuals is speculative, with grounds 
both for hope and fear. But by election we 
understand the choice of a part to bring a bless- 
ing to the whole, not to enjoy it instead of the 
whole. And the sacrificial work of Christ is 
quite as consistent with the idea of universal as 
of partial salvation." 

Dr. Abbott's inquirer was evidently wrong 
in his ideas of the Doctor's views as to Uni- 
versal Salvation. He is not a Universalist, but 
has evidently been talking in a way, — so fast 
and loose, getting by turns on both sides of the 
question, — as to lay himself open to be mis- 
understood. Such minds cannot make the 
affirmations of the Universalist faith. They 
sometimes lay down its premises, but are impo- 
tent in their conclusions. These samples of 
summer theology would seem to indicate an 



214 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

abandonment of the old views, but a lack of 
positiveness in proclaiming the new. It is evi- 
dently a transition period in the realm of 
Christian belief, leaving a great construction 
work for the heralds of our faith yet to be 
accomplished. It is hoped that in this, and in 
other respects, the summer rest may be followed 
by a vigorous Christian campaign all along the 
line. 



THE UBIQUITOUS WOMAN. 215 



XXVIII. 

THE UBIQUITOUS WOMAN. 

Oke of the most marked characteristics of 
the last decade of the closing century is the 
enlarging position of woman. Her presence 
and influence are everywhere seen and felt. It 
is a fact that must be recognized in our esti- 
mate of social forces, as much as the use of 
machinery or the expanding influence of the 
daily paper. During the prevalence of the 
balloon sleeves worn by women a few years 
ago, a toast was offered to the following effect : 
" The press, the pulpit, and the ladies, — the 
first spreads intelligence, the second spreads 
morality, the third spreads — considerably." 
Metaphorically speaking as well as taken liter- 
ally, the third declaration of the toast stands 
well sustained. Nowhere is this ubiquity of 
women more displayed, or more welcome, than 
in the interests and activities of religion. The 
work of her hand, and the loyalty of her heart, 
are manifested on every line of Christian work. 
Her zeal is seen in its hospitality, its benevo- 



216 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

lence, its church fellowship, its public worship, 
its teaching force in the Sunday school, its con- 
vention and missionary work, and in its litera- 
ture. She is in all these departments, and 
many more, the ubiquitous woman. 

And yet I have not named one great depart- 
ment of parish work in which woman stands 
most conspicuous. I refer to the direction and 
management of that particular interest which 
is as prevalent in the churches as the women 
themselves — the annual church fair. The 
season for this form of activity has but recently 
closed in all our churches, for a little ad interim 
Lenten lull, preparatory to its renewal in spirit 
when the season shall become a little more 
advanced, in the shape of May celebrations 
and strawberry festivals. In these enterprises 
woman reigns supreme, and exerts a wonder- 
fully useful and gracious influence. The energy 
called into exercise, the social tact, the artistic 
taste, the organizing power, and the genuine 
business ability displayed in these undertakings 
by women, are most creditable, and far excel in 
many respects the resources of what is known 
as the more practical sex. Women know how 
to combine sentiment with sense, and patience 
with practicality. Ned Sothern, the actor, 
father, if I mistake not, of the Sothern now 



THE UBIQUITOUS WOMAN. 217 

upon the boards in Boston, was once asked if 
he believed in an " omen," and his reply was, 
" I do, if you'll put a ' w ' before it, and turn it 
into women." Certainly ministers and churches 
may join the famous actor in believing in an 
" omen " when thus revised and improved. 

Religion without the ubiquitous woman would 
fare badly. Her broad and varied ministries 
must be gratefully acknowledged. She is in- 
telligent, enterprising, and loyal. " Your wife 
is a forehanded little creature," said a gentle- 
man to his neighbor. " Forehanded? " was the 
reply, " I should say so ! The day I stayed at 
home on account of the big snow-storm, she 
made me get out the lawn-mower and oil it." 
A little more of such forehandedness in con- 
templating the possibilities of our church in the 
future, would not be a bad accomplishment 
either in men or women. Nor should we limit 
the helpful influence of the women of the 
nineteenth century to the sphere of religion. 
It is sometimes feared that the absorption of 
her attention in the more social and secular 
affairs of the world may, after a while, lessen 
her interest in the work of the Christian church. 
We do not, however, share that apprehension. 
The refined and exalted elements so conspicu- 
ous in her affectional, intellectual and spiritual 



218 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

being, will always keep her loyal to the higher 
verities of Christian faith. It is a great honor 
to woman that she is so prominently identified 
with the ideas and purposes of the church. It 
is an indication of the exaltation and delicacy 
of her nature. 

But fortunately she is not limited to one 
sphere of usefulness. Look through the re- 
views and magazines, the poetry, the history, 
the biography, the sociology of the times, and 
see how largely they all bear the impress of the 
intelligent thought of women. And all these 
departments of knowledge and investigation 
are treated in a strong and vigorous manner. 
A gentleman professor observed to a class of 
young ladies at school, " It is demonstrated 
that the brain of the man is larger than the 
brain of the woman. Now what does that 
prove ? " " It proves," said a bright member 
of the class, " that the world is governed by 
quality and not by quantity." Whatever may 
be the physiological aspects of that question, 
there can be no doubt that the brain-activity 
of women has been wonderfully stimulated in 
the present age of the world. 

If now we add to these literary and intellec- 
tual activities the presence of woman in educa- 
tion, in philanthropy, as evidenced by suchl 



THE UBIQUITOUS WOMAN. 219 

labors as those of Clara Barton, of temperance 
as indicated in the services and sacrifices of the 
lamented Frances Willard, of prison reform and 
general social progress, we have an aggregate 
of womanly influence that must tell powerfully 
upon the condition of the world in the twentieth 
century. 

I have not in this enumeration of the ubiqui- 
tous influence of women referred to the large 
place she occupies in the club-life of the present 
day. If any one will take the trouble to look 
through that department of " The Boston Tran- 
script " headed "Women's Clubs," he will be led 
to wonder at their number and variety, and the 
large field of thought and practical endeavor 
that they cover. It will be seen what a vast 
amount of ability, consecration to high purpose, 
business foresight, and moral energy are in- 
volved in their transactions. They are in a 
sense universities for the training of the mind 
in the science of life and the claims of society. 
Their influence must be prodigious upon the 
condition of the coming generations. Some 
one has remarked that there is but one thing 
that it seems just a little improper for a woman 
to do. She cannot with propriety be an auction- 
eer. For how would it seem for a young lady 
to mount the auction block, and exclaim, " Now, 



220 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

gentlemen, all I want is an offer"? Some 
crusty old bachelor did add to this incapacity 
of women by saying that no woman could ever 
learn to swim, inasmuch as it was necessary to 
keep the mouth shut. But this may be said in 
her defense, that if she keeps her mouth open, it 
is filled with quite as much wisdom as the 
mouths of her revilers. 

I heard Lucy Stone some years ago on " The 
Progress of Woman in Fifty Years." At the 
beginning only three callings were deemed 
proper for her to pursue. To-day there are 
three hundred (or was it five hundred ?) which 
are being creditably filled by women. These are 
signs of the times, and are deeply significant as 
bearing upon the condition and progress of both 
halves of the human family. There was a man 
who never wrote his acceptance of an invitation 
without adding the letters " W. P." His friends 
asked him what they meant, — if they stood for 
" Weather permitting " ? " No," said he, " they 
stand for ' Wife permitting.' " I do not think 
that woman is just yet so ubiquitous as that, 
but she must be reckoned on as an important 
factor in the great life of the world. Fortu- 
nately we can depend upon her generally docile 
disposition, and may believe that she will use 
her rapidly increasing power and influence for 



THE UBIQUITOUS WOMAN. 221 

kindly and beneficent ends. It is not quite 
true, as Mrs. Jackson, the colored matron, said 
when Parson Sambo made a pastoral call on 
her. " So," said the parson, " dis little chile 
am a gal. Do de udder one belong to de con- 
trary sex ? " " Yais, Pahson," said Mrs. Jack- 
son, " dat's a gal, too." The ubiquitous woman 
will have to come into an agreement with the 
ubiquitous man, and neither must be " contrary " 
one to the other. 



222 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 



XXIX. 

THE BIRTHPLACE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

Acting- on the principle, every man his own 
automobile, I set out on a six-mile tramp to visit 
the spot where the famous journalist first saw 
the light. The twelve-mile round trip, I must 
confess, found me less automobilious than when 
I started, but I saw much to interest me on the 
way. 

The journey lay, in much part, through 
wooded highways, over an undulating country 
affording inspiring views of mountains and 
valleys. Leaving Shirley Hill, N.H., my place 
of sojourn, I took my course, out of Goffstown, 
through Bedford, and into Amherst, in which 
town is the shrine toward which I was wending 
my steps. I made a halt at the birthplace of 
another historic New-Englander, no less a 
personage than Dr. Joseph E. Worcester, the 
lexicographer, born in Bedford, Aug. 24, 1784, 
and with whom so many have had "hard 
words" since 1818, the year he began his labors 
on the dictionaries. After lunching, in what 



BIRTHPLACE OF HOE ACE GREELEY. 223 

now represents the birthplace of Worcester, I 
renewed my journey towards the childhood 
home of the sage of Chappaqua. Inquiring of 
a farmer at work in the field the way to the 
Greeley farm, I found that after fourteen years' 
residence within three miles of it, he had never 
heard of the farm, nor of Greeley either; re- 
minding me of a similar experience of Bayard 
Taylor's, when looking for the grave of Hum- 
boldt. " Humboldt, Humboldt," said the rustic, 
" what was his first name ? " I had a better re- 
turn from another farmer, who proudly said he 
had taken " The Weekly Tribune " right along, 
the last copy of which had come to him that 
very day. 

Arrived at the historic place, I found an old- 
fashioned story and a half "wood-colored" 
house, as they say here, — which means never 
painted, — close by the roadside, and opposite 
to a lofty, overhanging elm. The house and 
surrounding buildings are in a fair condition of 
preservation, and still in use. Over the door, 
on a copper plate, are the words, " In this house 
Horace Greeley was born, Feb. 3, 1811." 
The inscription was placed there this year by 
the Hon. Albert E. Pillsbury, former attorney- 
general of Massachusetts, whose summer home 
is in Milf ord, not far away. The room in which 



224 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

Greeley was born is now occupied for a sitting- 
room. The present lady of the house is the 
mother of six children, all boys, the youngest 
of whom was fast asleep in the cradle, and 
might, from his round, fair face, have been the 
infant Horace himself. One of the boys, nine 
years old, bears the name, Horace Greeley 
Hanson. A visitor some years ago asked a lady 
living near by if she remembered ever seeing 
Horace Greeley, and she replied, " Well, yes, 
I have a very early remembrance of him. I put 
the first shirt on him." And Greeley is recalled 
by the present head of the house, during a visit 
in the years of his fame, trudging along the 
hillside to pay his respects to this same person, 
Mrs. Woods, who probably had more regard for 
his personal appearance than he was ever after- 
ward known to manifest himself. Two years 
ago one of Greeley's daughters, and her hus- 
band, an Episcopal clergyman, spent a night 
under the roof that had sheltered the childhood 
of the illustrious father. 

The traditions of the boy's love of reading 
still linger in the town. He borrowed books 
everywhere, within ten miles of his home. At 
ten, he went with his family to Vermont, where 
for five years they struggled together for a sub- 
sistence in a new settlement. Becoming after- 



BIRTHPLACE OF HORACE GREELEY. 225 

ward a printer, he found his way, by various 
experiences, to New York City, where in 1831 
he began the remarkable editorial career which 
has given him so wide and honorable a reputa- 
tion. 

From this humble birthplace in the Granite 
State, he went forth to become by the force of 
his character and his abilities, a great national 
power. It came to him to shape the policy of 
parties, to be the counselor of senators and 
presidents, to direct public opinion, to lead in 
reforms, and to be the peer of philanthropists 
and statesmen. His pen was prolific on prac- 
tical, political, and moral subjects. He lived 
to be a member of Congress and a presidential 
candidate. Above all he is to be remembered 
as the founder of " The New York Tribune." 

It is from such humble places, all over New 
England, that have come the leaders and com- 
manders of the people. " What do you raise 
among these rocks?" demanded a visitor. 
" We plant schoolhouses," was the rejoinder, 
" and raise men ! " But in the case of Greeley, 
education was a very broad and varied experi- 
ence. It used to be said that he was a self- 
made man, and worshiped his own creator. 
This may be true, in that he had faith in him- 
self, but in other respects, he was the simplest 



226 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

and most childlike of men. In his manner 
mingled abruptness, brusqueness, and at times, 
violence of temper, with the most gentle and 
unsophisticated qualities. In his make-up he 
was a bundle of contradictions, presenting upon 
the whole a unique personality, unmatched in 
our national history. 

No stain ever rested upon his private char- 
acter or public record. When he ran for 
president, Theodore Tilton said " H. G." stood 
for " Honest Government," and was met by the 
retort that " T. T." stood for "Too Thin." 
However the last may be, the honesty of the 
great journalist has not been brought in 
question. His methods were often assailed, but 
not his motives. 

I saw Mr. Greeley several times, notably at 
Gloucester, Mass., in 1870, at the celebration 
of the Centennial of American Universalism. 
I recall his awkward step as he moved about 
among the tents erected for the occasion, his 
slouch hat and capacious garments, his gray 
locks, his obtrusive spectacles, his round, ruddy 
face, and indefinable smile, — constituting the 
oddest individuality that ever arrested atten- 
tion. His words on that occasion were in 
support of a favorite method of his for dissem- 
inating Universalis t literature. They have been 



BIRTHPLACE OF HORACE GREELEY. 227 

frequently recalled since, in defense of that 
branch of our denominational work. 

He was a member of Chapin's congregation, 
and had the reputation of serving regularly as 
one of the soundest sleepers, under the preach- 
ing of that eloquent divine. But it must be 
remembered that attendants at church can hear 
with closed eyes, and perhaps hear all the bet- 
ter; like that member of a congregation, who 
was rallied at the close of the service by the 
pastor, for having been asleep and proceeding to 
press the charge vigorously, his parishioner re- 
plied, " Well, I can tell you one thing, I wasn't 
so fast asleep but what I knew I had heard 
that sermon before ! " Nevertheless, ministers 
like the eyes, as well as the ears, of the people. 

In the days of Greeley and Chapin, Univer- 
salism was represented in the metropolis by a 
stalwart defender of the faith, — Thomas J. 
Sawyer, — whose influence as preacher, writer, 
educator, and debater, gave a positive and de- 
nominational character to our cause, everywhere 
felt to-day, and is recalled again, in gratitude, 
by his recent departure. How different were 
these three men — Greeley, Chapin, and Sawyer 
— whose labors fell so largely in the same city, 
and who did so much for religion, righteousness 
and reform. 



228 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

When I stood before the inscription over the 
Greeley farmhouse, 1 felt a sense of relief that 
it was not in his own handwriting. Mr. Greeley 
enjoys the distinction of having had an exe- 
crable chirography, surpassing in its hieroglyph- 
ical qualities the characters on a Chinese tea- 
box, or Rufus Choate's " H's " which were said 
to resemble a gridiron struck by lightning. 
Whether the story is apocryphal, I cannot say, 
that Greeley discharged, by a note, a compos- 
itor for not setting up his copy, and that the 
compositor used it in the next block as a cer- 
tificate for efficiency in printing, and got a job, 
lasting for years. The story is rendered doubt- 
ful by the fact that another version says it was 
used as a pass on a railroad. Justin McCarthy 
claims, in his newly published " Reminiscences," 
that Mr. Greeley's handwriting was the worst 
he ever saw ; but " The Independent " holds that 
Dean Stanley's was far worse, requiring careful 
interlineation by a patient editor. At all events 
Greeley was able to " make his mark." He 
was as deficient in his public speech as his pen- 
manship, but he had something to say in both 
cases ; and the people put up with his want of 
eloquence, and his clumsy gestures, because 
of the practical good sense and the nuggets of 
wisdom that were behind his quaintness. 



BIRTHPLACE OF HORACE GREELEY. 229 

As I looked over the fields at Amherst, I 
bethought me that the founder of " The Tribune " 
loved always to figure as a farmer. I could not 
but wonder whether the agricultural passion 
that seemed to possess him had got into his 
blood by this early contact with the soil and 
his boyhood's associations with the plow and 
the scythe. He became an agricultural re- 
former, — a farmer by the book, — and as I sat 
in the room in which he was born, and glancing 
out saw a bicycle go gliding by, I reflected on 
the change that had come to the methods of 
locomotion and of farm work since the urchin of 
the second decade of this century rode on the ox- 
cart and dropped the corn in the furrow. But 
I do not forget that Greeley as a farmer, in his 
after years, was not regarded as a howling suc- 
cess. At agricultural fairs, where he often 
spoke, his original theories gave rise to many 
a secret wink and nod, and not a few quips 
and quirks have gone the rounds at his dis- 
quisitions on seeds and soils, profit and loss. 
But his passion for farming was genuine, and 
proved a recreative aside from the strain and 
stress of his more public career. What would 
he have done with the home acres in Amherst 
had his ambitions not called him to wider 
spheres ? 



230 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

Whether the temperance principles of his 
maturer years could have withstood the hard 
cider and blackberry wine of the old New Eng- 
land home, who can say ? But it is pleasant to 
reflect that all through his career, by example 
and precept he was the foe of the drink traffic 
and habit. At banquets where wine was used, 
Mr. Greeley at the toasts always drew in the 
pure odor of a pink, which in his glass took 
the place of the ruddy liquid. He once con- 
fused the names of popular intoxicants, and 
upon being rallied for it by his fellow editors, 
remarked that he was the only man in the 
office who could have made the mistake. Amus- 
ing incidents abound about the great American 
commoner; but he has left an impression of 
genuine manhood, wisdom, and integrity, such 
as confer the highest glory upon citizenship 
in the republic. From the humble home by 
the Amherst wayside where I paused, came 
forth this fruitful gift to all the people. All 
honor to the memory of Horace Greeley! 



BOSTON IN THE EARLY FORTIES. 231 



XXX. 

BOSTON IN THE EARLY FORTIES. 

Not that my memory is so long as to stretch 
back to the forties, or that I have any inclina- 
tion to use its elasticity for that purpose even 
if it were. I think too much of Dr. Hale's 
famous motto, " Look forward and not back," 
preferring to act in the living present. But 
my attention has been called to the " Hub of 
the Universe," fifty-five years ago, by a gentle- 
man having put into my hand "The Boston 
Almanac for 1843." The word Almanac, how- 
ever, is misleading in this case, as it represents 
a volume of a hundred and fifty pages, contain- 
ing a great variety of information not found in 
the ordinary pamphlet bearing that familiar cog- 
nomen. Former issues had even presented a 
business directory of the city; but the publisher, 
"finding that a variety of matter was more 
agreeable to the tastes of his readers," changed 
that year the scope of his annual publication. 

This " Boston Almanac for 1843 " I find to be a 
very impressive and suggestive work. It bears 



232 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

a marked contrast to the present bulky " Direc- 
tory of the New England Metropolis," of which 
in some senses it may be considered a progen- 
itor. We look upon the map of the city, folded 
away between the covers, and cannot but note 
the expansion of municipal area, by the inclu- 
sion of new territory, and the vast tracts of 
" made land " upon which now stand some of 
the most substantial edifices, or through which 
run attractive driveways. The population of 
the early forties has multiplied, both by concen- 
tration in the old sections, where the blocks of 
buildings are more compact than six decades 
ago, as appears from pictorial glimpses in this 
annual, and also by the opening up of widely 
expanded regions, now the abode of comfortable 
and elegant homes, making an aggregate pop- 
ulation of half a million. The change in the 
character of the population in some parts is quite 
as marked as in its numbers. The problem of 
municipal corporations, as bearing upon state 
and national questions, has altogether changed 
within the last half century. This little volume 
has an air of mildness and modesty about its 
very make-up with its symbol of the scythe and 
hour-glass significant of the old-time life, out of 
which it seems to have reluctantly stepped into 
the bustle and whirl of the present. 



BOSTON IN THE EABLY FORTIES. 233 

As we turn these pages of two generations 
ago, we see what new forces and methods have 
been introduced into our modern life. The Fire 
Department, with a list of companies, names of 
officers, location of reservoirs, wells, fire-plugs, 
is furnished, suggesting the transformation in 
that branch of municipal service. The time- 
tables of omnibus routes, leaving the city for 
suburban districts, bring up the successive 
changes in means of transportation. No less re- 
markable are the lighting facilities of to-day in 
contrast with the forties. The rate and rapid- 
ity of mail transmission show the advantage of 
the present over the past. A letter of one piece 
of paper, sent thirty miles, cost six cents ; over 
four hundred miles, twenty-five cents. A letter 
of two pieces of paper, or three or four, required 
double, triple or quadruple rates. This seemed 
to be a tax on the art of letter-writing; and 
what fun there must have been in sending comic 
valentines weighted down with something more 
than love, or in malicious letters that had to 
be roundly paid for by the helpless receiver! 
I heard of one massive missive whose mys- 
terious interior disclosed only the evangelical 
couplet, — 

"If you are well, I am well, 
Pay the postage and go to — ' war ' " (vide Gen. Sherman). 



234 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

Cheap postage has been a boon in more ways 
than one. The mail is no longer a medium of re- 
venge. Among the bank officials in this literary 
waif of forty-three, occurs the name of Thomas 
Whittemore, that versatile character, who was 
a preacher of Universalism, editor of a denomi- 
national journal, writer of books, member of 
the legislature, president of a railroad, officer 
in financial institutions, devotee of music, and 
man of secular and religious affairs generally, 
and managing to do many things fairly well. He 
was a great power at one period of our church. 
An interesting department of " The Boston 
Almanac " is devoted to Public Institutions. A 
full history of benevolent and philanthropic 
movements is given. Three of them are de- 
voted to the reformation of juvenile criminals. 
Another is the Asylum for the Blind, which 
had gone into operation ten years before, under 
the direction of Dr. S. G. Howe, and in 1843 
had seventy-five pupils. I attended a wonder- 
ful exhibition, a few years ago, of the members 
of this school ; and it was an inspiration to wit- 
ness the knowledge and skill displayed by 
those who, like blind Milton, had wisdom at 
one entrance quite shut out. The presence of 
Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, the widow of the 
early friend and patron of the institution, was 



BOSTON IN THE EARLY FORTIES. 235 

an impressive feature of the anniversary. 
Without doubt the years that lie between forty- 
three and ninety-eight would attest a like prog- 
ress in many movements of benevolence and 
reform in Boston. 

On the School Committee, given as part of 
the City Government for that year, it is pleas- 
ant to see the names of Sebastian Streeter and 
Otis A. Skinner, prominent representatives of 
the Universalis t Church. They were associated 
with such names as John T. Sargent, George 
S. Hillard, Dr. William Hague, and others of 
like distinction, in the management of the 
schools. It indicates that the character and in- 
telligence of our clergymen, even when their 
form of belief was not popular, commanded 
public recognition. 

About one-half of " The Almanac " for forty- 
three, however, is given to the churches, includ- 
ing East and South Boston. This is the specialty 
for the year, to the exclusion of information 
given in previous issues. A short history of 
each society is furnished; and what seems 
more enterprising for that day, although famil- 
iar enough at the present, — each history is 
attended by an engraving of the church, display- 
ing sixty pictures, including every religious edi- 
fice in Boston. The views mostly represent plain 



236 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

and unpretending structures, contrasting sharp- 
ly with the present fine architecture. Of the 
whole number the Baptists numbered twelve, 
Episcopalians six, Methodists eight, Catholics 
five, Universalis ts six, Lutherans two, Swe- 
denborgians one. In 1800 there were twenty 
religious societies, in 1843 more than seventy. 
The author remarks, " The whole worshiping 
population are seen repairing to their several 
churches at once, — a spectacle interesting to the 
reflective stranger, and presenting a picture of 
Christian harmony equally instructive and en- 
gaging." 

I suspect the Sabbatarian observances were 
a little stricter than in these latter days. The 
facilities for travel were not so great, and the 
people had not so many " wheels " in their 
heads. But very likely " The Almanac " for forty- 
three makes the picture somewhat rose-colored. 
Certainly much earlier than that Dr. Emmons 
of Franklin, who owned the land upon which 
Dean Academy now stands, and who was a 
leading Orthodox divine and theological educa- 
tor, thundered from his pulpit against the 
non-church goers of his time. 

I am struck with the disparity in the num- 
bers of men and women in the churches of that 
period. " The Almanac " furnishes us with some 



BOSTON IN THE EARLY FORTIES. 237 

figures touching this subject. The Essex Street 
Church, of which Nehemiah Adams was pas- 
tor, known for his pro-slavery views as " South 
Side Adams," and who held a well-known theo- 
logical discussion with Dr. Sylvanus Cobb, had 
576 members, — 130 men, 446 women; the 
First Baptist Church, Dr. Neale pastor, had 
706,— men 197, women 509; the Old South 
Church, Dr. Blagden pastor, 481, — men 95, 
women 386 ; Park Street, 596, — men 164, 
women 432; Fourth Methodist, 430, — men 
127, women 303; Grace Church, 350, — men 
119, women 231 ; Salem Street, 567, — 
men 185, women 382; Federal Street, 476, — 
men 135, women 341. Of the School Street 
Universalist, the author remarks, " As this 
Communion is free to all who profess Christ, 
the number varies, ranging from one hundred 
to one hundred and fifty, the larger part 
women." 

It is said that figures won't lie, but that liars 
will figure, and this we know to be true some- 
times in parish numerical estimates ; but there 
is no reason to doubt the accuracy of these 
figures from the old almanac. They seem as 
if they might belong to-day to the records of 
the Universalist Ministers' Meeting in Boston, 
which discussed, a few weeks ago, this identi- 



238 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

cal subject of the difference in the number of 
men and women in our churches. Perhaps it 
is because women are better than men, or be- 
cause there are more of them ; a fact, however, 
that we supposed more applicable to the present 
in New England than to the past. But what- 
ever the cause, without doubt the ministers of 
'43 wrestled with the same old question : How 
to get the men into the churches. Our little 
book presents a picture of the Hanover Street 
Universalist Church, with John Murray as its 
pastor, installed 1793, and Sebastian Streeter, 
installed in 1824, and pastor many years there- 
after. He was celebrated for marrying more 
persons than any other minister in Boston. 
" From this society/' says the writer, " have 
emanated several other societies, which have 
erected for themselves places of worship in the 
city and vicinity, all of which are fully at- 
tended." An engraving follows of the Second 
Church (now Columbus Avenue), with the 
statement that Hosea Ballou began his labors 
as pastor the Sunday after its dedication (Oct. 
16, 1817). The following words are added : 
" The unity of God is advocated by the pastor 
of this society." 

A view is likewise given of the Universalist 
church in South Boston, then occupied by the 



BOSTON IN THE EARLY FORTIES. 239 

Fourth Universalist Society, gathered in 1830 
by the Rev. Benjamin Whittemore, who was 
installed in 1833, was pastor in 1843, and whose 
memory is fragrant throughout the denomina- 
tion. His wife was the daughter of Hosea Bal- 
lou, and their children are faithful friends of 
our cause. The Warren Street Universalist — 
numbered the fifth — is also honored by a pic- 
torial representation. It was formed in 183T, 
and had, in 1843, 350 members. Otis A. Skin- 
ner was pastor. It had two Sunday schools of 
400 children and 70 teachers, with two female 
charitable associations. In the basement there 
was a large vestry and three schoolrooms. This 
church is now, if I mistake not, represented in 
the Every-Day Church, and it is somewhat sig- 
nificant that it began in a small way the work 
of an institutional church. It is appropriate 
that the Every-Day Church should contain a 
memorial window in honor of the pastor of '43, 
who began its benevolent career. 

It will probably be news to some that the 
Bulfinch Street Church was incorporated in 
1823 as the Central Universalist Society, with 
Peal Dean — at one time a Universalist minis- 
ter, but later a Restorationist — as pastor. By 
a unanimous vote of the society, in 1838, appli- 
cation was made to the Legislature for a change 



240 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE 

of name, for the reason, as set forth in their 
memorial, " that the term ' Universalist,' as now 
theologically defined, expresses a meaning in- 
consistent with their faith ; " which was granted, 
and they were authorized to take the name of 
the Bulfmch Street Society. 

The religious leaders brought out by this 
review revive the memory of great names : 
Edward Everett and John G. Palfrey in the 
list of pastors of the Brattle Square Church; 
John Pierpont at Hollis Street ; Thomas Bald- 
win of Baldwin Place Church, from whom Dr. 
Thomas Baldwin Thayer derived his name; 
James Freeman, for whom Dr. James Freeman 
Clarke was called ; and Lyman Beecher, Edward 
Beecher, Austin Phelps, Father Taylor, and 
other great lights, who made the pulpit of 
Boston illustrious in the first half of the nine- 
teenth century. " The Boston Almanac " of the 
early forties thus affords food for reflection on 
the past and inspiration for duty in the present. 
May each successive decade bring to the me- 
tropolis new progress and prosperity ! 



THE DIVINE ART OF COOKING. 241 



XXXI. 

THE DIVINE ART OF COOKING. 

Probably there is nothing so widely and 
variedly related to life as this subject. Health, 
home, holiness, harmony, happiness, hopefulness, 
and we might, in the right sense, add heaven, 
depend upon stomachic conditions ; and these 
in turn, upon the proper preparation of food. 

Man seems to have been involved in the doom 
pronounced in the Garden of Eden upon the 
serpent. Metaphorically speaking, he goes upon 
his ventral cavity, and it becomes a prime factor 
in his condition and possibilities. The manipu- 
lators of great benevolent movements find that 
the gastric nerve leads directly to the pocket. 
Politicians tickle the palate with savory viands 
to get votes. And the fate of parties depends 
upon the condition of the food supply. Bad 
cooking distorts the views of nature, humanity, 
providence, and the future. We would not go 
so far as Ben Jonson, and say that every man is 
a rascal so soon as he is sick, but there is an 
allopathic proportion of truth in the statement. 



242 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

Had John Cah 7 in possessed the gastronomic 
capacity of Henry Ward Beecher, the logic of 
the former would have been tempered by the 
love of the latter, and the Calvinistic nightmare 
would never have afflicted the world. Dr. 
Channing said there was a time when he 
tended to gloomy views of religion because of 
poor health. The cuisine and the conscience, 
food and faith, are more intimately related than 
we are wont to suppose. During a thunder- 
storm in the night a devout Catholic, apprehen- 
sive that lightning might strike his house, 
fumbled around in the darkness, and, finding 
the magic bottle of holy water, sprinkled the 
contents upon the members of his family, and 
upon the rooms that contained them, only to 
find in the morning that instead of the holy 
water, he had been using his wife's blueing 
bottle ! 

Distorted visions of men and things come 
from the blueing bottle of that " diabolical ar- 
rangement called a stomach," whose maladies 
are largely the product of villainous cookery. 
Mr. Huxley was right in emphasizing the phy- 
sical basis of life. But in the word life, we 
must include not only bodily existence, but the 
vigor and virtue of the soul. Prof. C. H. Hen- 
derson, in the " Popular Science Monthly " for 



THE DIVINE ART OF COOKING. 243 

June, recognizes this. " There is no action 
which is ethically indifferent. Even the bodily 
functions, the act of breathing, the beating of 
the heart, the process of digestion, which in 
health are so automatic that we are quite uncon- 
scious of them, are, nevertheless, the product of 
knowable conditions, and as such are under the 
indirect control of the reformed spirit. . . . 
Whether the digestive apparatus is doing good 
work, renewing and refreshing the tissues, is a 
moral question." 

Food must, therefore, be reckoned a means of 
grace. The commissary department of the army 
is as important as the commissioned officers, and 
the rations of the soldier more indispensable 
than the orations of the platform. The tramp 
who asked the kind-hearted housewife, who, 
after the most approved scientific charity, had 
given the loafer a loaf and sent him to saw 
wood, and who, after trying both, returned and 
asked his benefactress if she cared if he ate the 
wood and sawed the bread, showed a delicate 
sense of discrimination. 

This being true, it is well that more attention 
is given now to domestic economy. As the 
homes of the people become more elegant, con- 
veniently appointed, brilliantly illuminated, and 
richly ornamented, it is fitting that their affairs 



244 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

be intelligently administered, and that the chemi- 
cal qualities of food and the laws of hygiene be 
considered in the preparation of daily suste- 
nance. 

Our public schools teach both physiology and 
the art of cooking, which must include no little 
knowledge of the articles and compounds used 
in the culinary department, and the principles 
of chemistry underlying their combinations and 
processes. To put more intelligence into ordi- 
nary duties is to lift them out of drudgery and 
give them new interest and purpose. Put mind 
into commonplaces and they become dignified 
and ennobled. Let it once be understood that 
God places upon our tables the products of all 
climes, and gives us intelligence to co-operate 
with him in preparing and combining them to 
promote our vigor, and the kitchen becomes as 
interesting and instructive as the drawing- 
room. 

What we derive from literature, music, art, 
society, and nature depends largely upon phys- 
ical conditions. The mind, clouded and dulled 
by inadequate and unwholesome food, cannot 
get the best results from any department of 
life. Even Mr. Scrooge, in "The Christmas 
Carol," saw how bodily conditions affected 
mental visions, and tried to persuade himself 



THE DIVINE ART OF COOKING. 245 

that Marley's ghost was due to " a blot of 
mustard or an underdone potato." A minister 
troubled with a sleepy congregation entered 
into a calculation of the quantity of leguminous 
nutriment to which he preached every Sunday 
morning. Not that Jacob's pottage of lentils 
was not good for sound health, but that sound 
health and sound sleep are often too much for 
sound doctrine. Dull sermons are sometimes 
made so by dull hearing, and not a few domestic 
discords have gastronomic generation. Better 
prepared food is an agent of better civilization, 
and is the basis of great human interests. 
Therefore, in an age when there are so many 
diversions from ordinary interests, it is well for 
the domestic economist to magnify this more 
obscure department of life, — the subway of 
existence, — and to congratulate himself upon 
the enlarged attention given in homes and 
schools and co-operative cookery to the practical 
art of living. No wonder the chefs in great 
hostelries command large salaries, — they pre- 
side at the fountains of life ; but it is passing 
strange that, with all the realms of industry 
and the professions, including the ministry, 
overcrowded, there are not more aspirants for 
the departments of physiology and chemistry 
opened up in the art of preparing what the 



246 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

Creator gives with an open hand to supply the 
wants of every living creature. If the material 
is of divine origin, the combination on our part 
is a divine art. 

It is the office of religion to exalt, spiritu- 
alize, and harmonize the sources and helps of 
life, and it has an encouraging word for books, 
magazines, schools, food exhibitions, and family 
instruction, which increase a knowledge of the 
methods of living. Churches have sewing- 
classes, and what is to hinder our humanitarian 
organizations in poor districts from elevating 
homes by helping them to better systems in 
this respect? The ridicule poured upon the 
cooking-school by professional humorists is not 
justified. The young husband who finding his 
wife, who had received such instruction, in tears 
because the rodents had run away with her first 
angel cake, and said to console her, " Oh, I 
wouldn't make such a fuss about a few rats ! " 
very likely did her injured feelings injustice. 
Housekeeping and homekeeping comprehend 
practical administrations, which are helped by 
the increasing intelligence of the times. I 
always sympathized with Dr. Harris of Scotland, 
who, when asked which he preferred of the 
sisters in Bethany, Martha, the deft-handed, or 
Mary, the sentimentalist, replied, " He liked 



THE DIVINE ART OF COOKING. 247 

Martha before dinner and Mary afterward." 
But this is dangerous ground to tread upon, 
and might subject one to the sad fate foreshad- 
owed in the juvenile inquiry : " Mother, do 
Christians eat preachers, just like the cannibals 
do ? " " Why, no, my child ; what put that 
notion into your head? " " I heard Mrs. Deekon 
say that she was going to have the preacher for 
luncheon." Sometimes, because of his critical 
attitude, he ought not to be welcome on the 
table or at it. 



248 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 



XXXII. 

A VACATION PEW THAT TALKS BACK. 

The seat that does duty for lookers-on by 
the tennis court upon which I glance from my 
window, once served as a pew in an ancient and 
now deserted church in " Thornton Gore," four- 
teen miles away from my summering place. 

The changed lot that has fallen to the plain, 
old pine seat is suggestive of earthly vicissi- 
tudes. From resting the pious worshiper, it 
has come to sustain the gay pleasure-seeker. 
And as I muse over its probable history, and 
present use, the venerable object seems to 
" talk back " in more ways than one ; and be- 
comes even more eloquent than Depew of the 
great metropolis, in his loftiest flight of post- 
prandial oratory. 

It is said that Agassiz could construct from 
a single bone of an extinct animal, the whole 
skeleton ; and imagination can frame from a 
single pew the entire structure of which it was 
a part, and the varied life that once centered in 
and about it. 



A PEW THAT TALES BACK. 249 

With the abandoned farms of the out-lying 
regions are associated abandoned homes, aban- 
doned school-houses, and abandoned churches. 
The old pew talks back to me of the sixty or 
seventy families in a prosperous agricultural 
country in the " Gore," — so called from its 
triangular form, resembling the gore of a lady's 
dress in the olden time. But the seventy-five 
years or more of its existence have reduced the 
number of homes to five or six, closed the 
school-house, dismantled the sanctuary, and 
left the grave-yard close by, the only thing 
that gives evidence of an increase in numbers. 
The sons and daughters of the later generations 
were allured to the larger centers of popula- 
tion, — it is hoped to make active members of 
churches there, — while the time-worn edifice is 
left to echo the thoughtless voices of sportsmen 
and picnickers ; or its fragments to serve — as 
does the old pew that talks to me this morning 
— the devotees of lawn tennis. I will not 
lament " to what base uses do we come," for 
may not the nimble balls that fly back and 
forth across the tennis net, be suggestive of a 
happier and more helpful service than the pious 
platitudes and dismal deliverances that may 
once have lulled into Sunday slumbers the oc- 
cupants of the old pew ? 



250 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

We can fancy the minister expounding the 
Bible, and pounding the pulpit, which is now 
stored away as a relic in a bam not far 
away. The walls once reverberated with the 
sound of true blue evangelical doctrines, un- 
mixed with any thought of " higher criticism,'' 
"new orthodoxy," or "rampant radicalism." 
They were as innocent of all these things, 
which have since come to trouble creeds, coun- 
cils, and conventions, as they were of steam- 
engines, sewing-machines, and McCormick 
reapers. They were undisturbed in the good 
old times by these new-fangled notions, and 
would doubtless have felt as did the excellent 
old lady who lived in Concord, Massachusetts, 
when the articles of her faith were assailed by 
the freedom and audacity of transcendentalism. 
" I don't care," said she, " so much about pre- 
destination and free will, and all them sort of 
things ; but if they take away my total de- 
pravity, I shall feel as though I hadn't any re- 
ligion at all." Were the old pew, in which 
some of them sat, possessed of ears, it might 
come to know that its fellow pews in aristo- 
cratic churches had come to hear all the vener- 
able doctrines of the old lady assailed and 
refuted. I heard a lady, whose parents were 
attendants at the deserted church, and whose 



A PEW THAT TALKS BACK. 251 

own childhood had felt its influence, remark 
that she no longer accepted the faith for which 
it stood, but rejoiced in the larger hope. 

The pews are talking back to-day to the 
pulpit, and both pulpit and pew are expressing 
Christian truths no more like the old creeds, 
than the old edifices in which they were pro- 
claimed are like the new ones in which the 
present generation worships. The pews and 
the preaching are alike brighter and more 
wholesome. This former pew, in the shade of 
a young and growing maple, looking upon a 
more cheerful young life, symbolizes the change 
that has come to our views of nature, God, and 
the future. And so I listen as the old pew, 
" under a dome more vast," talks back in hope- 
ful tones of man and the world, and becomes 
puissant with higher and better thought, mak- 
ing me a Puritan in a wiser way. 

But I listen again to this pew of other days, 
and more cheerful voices float in from the past. 
Its former occupants tell of spirited singing by 
the choir in the singing seats of the old church. 
The young people were given to merry-making, 
and good times abounded. Human nature was 
proof against the repression of gloomy views. 
Youth and hope and gay colors sat in the pews, 
to brighten the sober garments of deacons and 



252 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

matrons. The farms, now owned by the " New 
Hampshire Land Company," then represented 
young men and maidens, whose hearts were 
touched by the romance of love, and with 
psalms and prayers were mingled the softer 
sighs and quicker glances that a stern theology 
could not expel, no matter how black it painted 
the world beyond. 

We hear of one minister who wished for some 
way to make the congregation keep their eyes 
on him during the sermon, and who was told 
that one method would be to put the clock right 
behind the pulpit. But even that device would 
not divert youthful eyes in the old pew from 
wandering from the pulpit to the bright face 
of a neighbor. Our tennis-court pew could no 
doubt tell many a story of love and betrothal, 
as well as sadder ones of sorrow and death. 
The heart is the same on tennis court and in 
sacred court when it seeks to woo and win. 

Fragrant memories of " apple bees," " corn 
huskings," and sleighing parties are still re- 
vived by those of riper years whose youth was 
associated with the festivities of the " church 
in the Gore." And who can tell the neighbor- 
hood gossip — harmless we may hope in motive 
— that filled the Gospel intervals at the Sunday 
gatherings, and made alive again by this respon- 



A PEW THAT TALKS BACK. 253 

sive pew? Perhaps it was the gossip defined 
by the small boy, — " when nobody ain't done 
nothing, and somebody goes and tells." The 
genuine inquiries, too, the sympathetic hand- 
grasps, the interest in the latest birth, or mar- 
riage, or death, the crops, the local news that 
occupied the thoughts and tongues of men and 
women, young and old, made up the human life 
clustering about the pew that talks back. 

It is impossible to reconstruct the extinct 
world of thought, affection, hope, labor, and 
care, of which the pew by the tennis ground 
has become an epitome. The lapse of time has 
made what was once the reality of joy and sor- 
row, and smiles and tears, pass into a dream 
when one awaketh ; but fancy strives to build 
again around the transformed pew, the church, 
the home, and the world. There the heart 
made its vows at the marriage altar; there 
childhood received its first impressions of re- 
ligion ; there sorrow came with its dead for the 
last words ; there the home and heaven were 
united in faith and hope ; there the pew looked 
to the pulpit for comfort and help. It reveals 
the old, old story of life and love. Happy is it 
if the pulpit of any day is able to send light 
into the life and love that are forever old, and 
yet forever new; the same in the pew at 



254 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

Thornton Gore and in the cathedral of the 
metropolis. 

The old pew would also talk back, would we 
permit, about the more practical subject, the 
problem of the country church. The village 
congregation is not only decimated by deaths 
and removals, but by the voluntary absence in 
many hamlets of those who still remain. The 
number who gather for worship is but a fraction 
of those who might occupy the pews. The 
churches, in regions visited by the summer 
boarder, receive a too scanty re-enforcement by 
visitors at their Sunday services. But there 
are enough who attend to impart somewhat of 
the more alertful spirit of the larger communi- 
ties ; and they should by personal communica- 
tion and contribution make the country pew 
more influential with the pulpit. That should 
be one of the incidental benefits to the pew- 
holders, of the annual visits of the city resident. 
In this way might be found some compensation 
for the lessened activities of city churches in 
the summer. 

The country preacher, in the evangelical 
churches especially, should give to the pew a 
more cheerful and timely message than some of 
them are accustomed to speak. The sermons, 
when the dog-star rages, need not be over-dog- 



A PEW THAT TALKS BACK. 255 

matic. The preaching, while not necessarily 
about nature, may well be in accordance with 
the exuberant life of creation, and with appro- 
priateness to times and seasons. Something on 
local matters — as village improvement, for ex- 
ample — might reach the ear, and the pocket 
too, of some city sojourner, disposed to do his 
abiding-place a favor, if he only knew how and 
what. I recall country places which have been 
greatly benefited by the benefactions of their 
sons, whose careers in the cities have brought 
them wealth. The pew of childhood and youth 
may respond to later appeals of memory and 
affection. This is a vein well worth working, 
both in the pulpit and out of it, by the country 
parson. 

The old pew under the maple talks back, also, 
for a more optimistic hymnology. The hymns 
that it used to hear, as we are told, may have 
been full of spirit. We know that the standard 
tunes were grand, and are still welcome ; but it 
must be confessed that the words of hymns 
sometimes heard to-day are depressing. The 
successor of my ancient pew in the church asks 
for something cheerful and enlivening, with the 
spirit of the present, not of the past. No ser- 
vice should be so inanimate as to suggest at its 
close the hymn, " And am I yet Alive ? " 



256 THINGS WISE AND OTHERVflSE. 

The pews sometimes complain that they have 
no chance to talk back. In this case we have 
suspended the rule and listened to the voice of 
a new-fashioned " Puseyite." I fear he may 
need to learn a lesson which has always been 
hard for the pulpit, — to stop when he gets 
through. 



SIGNS AND SAYINGS. 257 



XXXI. 

SIGNS AND SAYINGS IN THE COUNTRY. 

It is interesting to observe the signs and say- 
ings in circulation among the people of the sum- 
mer sojourn. While getting nearer to nature, 
it is an added pleasure to get nearer also to our 
human kind, under different conditions of life. 
There is nothing so instructive as humanity. 
The proper study of mankind is man. I always 
sympathized with Father Taylor, the seamen's 
preacher in Boston, who, when nearing his 
earthly end, was comforted by a pious visitor 
with the assurance that he would soon be with 
the angels, whereupon the old man replied, " I 
don't care for angels, I want folks." 

The signs and sayings which have rewarded 
my search are not all peculiar to dwellers in the 
rural region, for not a few of them are quite as 
familiar to the residents of cities ; but as many 
arise from the forms and events of Nature, they 
are more constantly recognized by those who 
live in closer relations to them. 

Many of the signs and sayings, it is claimed, 



258 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

are founded upon correct observations, and are 
as scientific as the present predictions of the 
weather or an eclipse. Others, it must be con- 
fessed, are the results of frequent repetitions by- 
many generations, and may have come down, 
like our nursery rhymes, from remote antiquity 
and distant lands. It is very difficult, however, 
to shake them off, even when convinced that 
they have no foundation in truth. Sir Walter 
Scott could never get over an impression — per- 
haps born in his blood — of foreboding, upon 
overturning the salt at a meal, particularly if it 
fell to the floor. 

It is true that larger intelligence and observa- 
tion have banished the evil forecasts of Friday 
and the number thirteen. Young persons defy 
the evil sign by committing themselves to mat- 
rimony on the sixth day of the week, and the 
" Thirteenth Club " sets at defiance the bad 
omen of the "baker's dozen;" but many persons 
are still under the baleful spell of days and num- 
bers. I was once being entertained at table, 
when it was incidentally observed that thirteen 
were present, and " mine hostess," an intelligent 
lady, immediately sent for a neighbor to come 
in and break the fatal figure. Country people 
are no less enlightened about observing signs 
than their city cousins, nor in other respects, as 



SIGNS AND SAYINGS. 259 

to that matter, for I do not forget the old minis- 
ter's advice to his young brother, " When you 
go into the city to preach, take your best coat ; 
into the country, your best sermon." 

But it would probably astonish the most of 
us to know the multiplicity of signs and sayings 
unconsciously stored away in our minds, and 
which are brought forth upon occasion. My 
pursuit of these among friends and acquaint- 
ances in the country has revealed a great quan- 
tity and variety. Not that they direct their plans 
and actions by them, any more than do the in- 
habitants of cities, but they serve to show a 
survival of the form, when the spirit has de- 
parted. 

A. goodly number of signs and sayings refer 
to the weather, and show what our ancestors 
had to depend upon as to atmospheric changes, 
before the daily papers disclosed the probabili- 
ties of weather experts. 

Riding the other day, the driver, observing 
the mist across the valley, said, — 

• "Fog on the hill, 
Water to the mill ; 
Fog in the hollow, 
Fair day to follow." 

Many weather prognostications are based on 
tradition or observation ; for example : "If the 



260 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

leaves turn inside, it is a sign of rain." " If a 
rooster jumps on the fence and crows, it will 
clear away ; " a saving very likely with some 
support, as the lower orders must learn some- 
thing, and perhaps transmit it, as to the signs of 
nature. The squirrel provides against the ap- 
proaching winter. Another is, — 

' ' A mackerel sky- 
Will wet before it's dry." 

The note of the quail, " More wet," is a sign of 
rain. Fancy, in other sections, makes it say, — 

"Bob White, 
Is your wheat ripe ? " 

A pig with a straw in its mouth denotes " fall- 
ing weather ; " sometimes facetiously applied to 
a callow youth who sports a cigar or cigarette. 

" If corn husks are light (in weight) on the 
ear, an open winter is sure to follow." " If the 
ants are busy around the top of their hills, it is 
a sign of fair weather." " When trees snap in 
the winter, it indicates a thaw." " If beavers 
and muskrats build their houses low, it means 
a dry winter ; if high over the water, it is a 
sign of freshets." " The cry of the cuckoo 
forebodes rain." " The late hanging of leaves 
on trees betokens a late winter." " A kettle 
taken off the fire with the soot burning, or a. 



SIGNS AND SAYINGS. 261 

kettle boiling dry, foretells a storm." " The 
grass dry in the morning, and the rock sweat- 
ing, denote a rainstorm." "A cat's back to the 
fire means a rough, cold spell." " When the 
cattle are turned out in the morning and lie 
down, it indicates foul weather." " Flies thick 
in the house is the sign of a wet time." 

" White coals on the hearth, 
Cold times on the earth ; 
The coals dim and dead, 
A quick thaw instead." 

"A thunder shower in apple-blossom time, 
and there will be no apples that year." " Three 
white frosts in succession is a sign of snow, 
three dark frosts a sign of a wet spell." " The 
hooting of an owl on the hill is a sign of fair 
weather, but if in the valley, foul weather." 
" Cobwebs on the grass is a sign that the fair- 
ies have their washing out." 

It is impressive to reflect how far these 
signs and sayings about heat and cold, and wet 
and dry, may in the past have entered into the 
farmer's calculation of seed-time and harvest, 
and winter and summer. They may, however, 
have set lightly upon him, never arising to the 
dignity of reasons for actions, just as many re- 
ligious beliefs have not been the real springs of 
conduct or character. At all events, we of to- 



262 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

day, both in city and country, are observing the 
signs of wind and weather more scientifically. 

Another round of signs and sayings, I ob- 
serve, deals largely with the idea of luck. This 
is not so remarkable when we consider how 
prone are the devotees of popular games to re- 
sort to " mascots " and " hoodoos ; " and in how 
many pockets may be found horse-chestnuts, 
a bit of snake-skin, or a charmed coin. Not- 
withstanding there is at present a wider recog- 
nition of law, and of Garfield's saying that "An 
ounce of pluck is worth a pound of luck," we 
find men acting as if the world was an affair of 
chance, and the outcome of life a matter of 
good or bad fortune. There are Napoleons who 
still believe in their stars. 

Many of the signs and sayings reported to 
me embody this thought: that life is a mat- 
ter of good or bad luck. For examples of this 
kind, we may refer to the position when seeing 
the moon; and it is the result of living closer 
to nature that we more frequently gaze upon 
the heavenly bodies. The glories of the starry 
dome, the beauty of the queen of night, and 
the splendors of sunset, oftener entrance the 
vision of the summer visitor. Whether the 
points of the new moon curve so sharply as to 
be capable of holding the old-fashioned powder 



SIGNS AND SAYINGS. 263 

horn, or swing low, letting the water rim out, 
is a question of leisurely consideration, as are 
many other observations of nature indicative 
of good or bad fortune. It was Perry Pattettic, 
the tramp, who said to Wayworn Watson, his 
companion, " I seen the new moon over my left 
shoulder," receiving the reply, "That settles 
it. I'll bet the very next place you ask for 
work you git it." 

"It is unlucky," says one of my signs, " to 
find a four-leaf clover and give it away. If it 
is kept, luck remains with you." Certainly 
some persons have either good luck or trained 
faculties in finding odd clovers ; being able 
while riding along to discover them by the 
roadside. " If a black cat comes to you, it is a 
sign of good luck." It would better befit the 
opposite ; and I have noticed that the romancers, 
in their blood-curdling scenes, not infrequently 
introduce a black cat or an owl. " To break a 
looking-glass is a sign of seven years' trouble." 
" To meet one on the stairs is a sign of disap- 
pointment." " Wish by a load of hay, and it 
becomes true." "If the left hand itches on the 
inside, it signifies the winning of money." 
" To fall up-stairs is a sign of good luck." To 
dream of babies is a good omen. To set off on 
a journey and have to return, you must sit 



264 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

down and cross the legs, for good luck. This 
may be a form of the superstition concerning 
the cross, which imagination has seen in every- 
thing and everywhere. Never present a sharp 
instrument, it will cut friendship. If you lend 
a needle, you must ask for it again. 

The horseshoe is much in vogue in the 
matter of luck. A horseshoe full of nails is 
good luck, a few nails not so good, and no nails 
at all bad luck. A knight of the whip, who 
has been much on the road, tells me he has 
great faith in these signs. If the nose itches, 
before the day is over you'll kiss a fool, see a 
stranger, or be in danger. The word " luck " 
is much used in connection with fishing, a pop- 
ular pastime with vacationists. It is a popular 
saying, " When apple blossoms shed, it will be 
a good season to catch fish." " Break the first 
brake," runs another saw, " and kill the first 
snake, and you'll conquer all your enemies." 

Pins play an essential part in the government 
of the world, if we may believe the signs. It 
is important whether we pass one with the 
head or the point toward us. 

"Find a pin and pick it up, 
All day long you'll have good luck. 
Find a pin and let it lie, 
All the day you'll have to cry." 



SIGNS AND SAYINGS. 265 

I regret to find the large number of signs 
and sayings that indicate death. If they were 
ever really believed, they must have made 
life a constant terror. Fortunately they are 
not — and perhaps never were — largely and 
practically accepted. The signs out of which 
we live from day to day are far more cheerful 
and helpful, and are growing more so all the 
time. 

I have brought out the following signs as 
presaging the great change : " To dream of 
marriage is a sign of death." A lady tells me 
she has repeatedly verified the truth of this 
saying. A howling dog betokens the same. 
If it thunders in February the President will 
die before the year is out." " The way in 
which a candle burns is a sign of the last mes- 
senger." "A bird flying into the house is a 
sign of death." The notes of the whip-poor- 
will, mournful enough to some persons at best, 
if heard near the house is an indication of a 
speedy death in the family. I am assured that 
this sign proved true in the observation of my 
informant, which is very likely, since whip- 
poor-wills often come near to houses, and must 
sometimes hit the sad event. 

But the somberness of these mortuary signs 
is relieved by many which pertain to marriage. 



266 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

" Find a four-leaf clover, 
Put it in a shoe ; 
The first man you meet, 
He'll be married to you." 

The saying, "If four persons meet and cross 
hands, it is a sign of a wedding," must find cur- 
rency wherever "hearts beat and hands meet." 
On the contrary, to trip up-stairs, as some 
render this sign, is an indication that you will 
not be married. But I regret to say that signs 
of getting married and "living happily ever 
afterward," as the story books used to run, are 
not so numerous as the signs pertaining to the 
other side of life. But, happily for our human- 
kind, all signs fail in dry weather, and -we are 
glad to believe the evil ones fail in all kinds of 
weather. 

A large number of signs and sayings were 
uncovered that fail of classification. Here are 
a few which may be reckoned of the miscella- 
neous kind : " A spark on a candle, and you're 
sure to have a letter ; " " If your right ear 
burns, some one is talking good of you, the left 
ear, talking bad ; if at night, either is all right." 
To drop the dishcloth is a sign of company. 
" Company on Monday, company every day in 
the week." When a rooster steps in front of 
the door and crows, it is a sign of company. 



SIGNS AND SAYINGS. 267 

Dream of the dead, and you will get a letter 
from the living." 

All these signs and sayings and many more 
were gathered from the memories of the young 
and old. What is the philosophy of them, 
where they originated, and how far they have 
influenced the thought and conduct of mankind 
in city and country, we cannot determine. It 
is well that the beneficent laws of God are 
coming more and more to be recognized as 
underlying nature and life, and that fewer places 
are left for caprice and accident. 



268 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 



XXXIV. 

"THE DEVIL'S DEN." 

Not a few summer retreats display at least 
two attractions, — " The Lover's Lane " and 
" The Devil's Den." Not that I would insinu- 
ate a mysterious connection between these con- 
trarieties, or that the terminus of lover's lane is 
located in the realms of his satanic majesty. 
It may be the comedy and tragedy in the drama 
of life, which, alas, sometimes lie very near to 
each other. Philosophize as we may, it is true 
that in this town, nestling among the hills of 
New Hampshire, are to be found the beauty of 
Lover's Lane and the bane of the Devil's Den. 

The first is a shaded way, curving among 
towering trees, by the side of a ravine, enli- 
vened at times by a brook, and displaying moss- 
covered rocks and fallen monarchs of the forests, 
ending in a broad intervale, stretching to the 
Pemigewasset, while beyond rise the encircling 
hills. Despite the coolness of Lover's Lane, 
no place could be better adapted to inflame the 
tender passion, were one susceptible. There is 



" THE DEVIL'S DEN." 269 

nothing in its associations like the petition of 
the revivalist, " O Lord, water the ' spark ' 
which Thou hast kindled." 

The Devil's Den, as one might imagine, is 
opposite in character and environment to Lov- 
er's Lane. It is located amid the rocks of 
Beebe's River, where the spring freshets whirl 
down with many a dash in a roughened current. 

The entrance to the Den is reached at this 
season of low water, by jumping from rock to 
rock, in the river bed. It is eight feet in 
height, admitting the visitor walking erect. 
Before entering he lights a candle, which 
thoughtful inhabitants have provided, and cau- 
tiously proceeds into the dark and sometimes 
dripping interior. If he proceeds to the end, 
he will have traversed nearly or quite two hun- 
dred feet on an almost horizontal line. Whether 
he will find the imp of darkness or any other 
mysterious being long supposed to inhabit 
caverns, depends upon the power of imagination 
or the possibilities of faith. But unless he 
takes heed to his steps, he will find a sudden 
descent into a rocky basin filled with water, 
giving him an involuntary bath. The experi- 
ence of a summer boarder awakens laughter to 
this day, who with lighted taper was hurrying 
forward to play the trick of leaving his com- 



270 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

panions to grope in darkness. His ardor was 
suddenly dampened by the treacherous pool, 
suggesting, with slight variations, the old 
quatrain, — 

' ' He digged a pit, he digged it deep, 
He digged it for his brother ; 
But for his sin, he tumbled in 
The pit he digged for t'other." 

But the Devil's Den, like the " ancient and 
(dis)honorable " potentate for whom it is 
called, has a history. Its origin, unlike the 
more celebrated Flume, is not traceable to con- 
vulsions in prehistoric ages, but is due to the 
pluck and persistence of our human kind. It 
is a wonderful excavation, leading far into the 
granitic heart of the geological formation of 
Beebe's River. 

The story of the Den, as it first reached me, 
possessed the weirdness of the supernatural. 
It is traced, by co mm on report, to the " spirit 
direction " of a lady of wealth, who was assured 
by her ghostly guide that Capt. Kidd's long-lost 
treasures were concealed in the rocky fastness. 

It will be remembered that Dungeon Rock 
(in one of Boston's suburban regions), an im- 
mense cavern dug out of solid rock scores of 
feet, and prosecuted perhaps a score of years, 
had a like origin, and was for the same purpose 



" THE DEVIL'S DEN." 271 

- the discovery of Capt. Kidd's money. It is 
suggestive to note how the exploits of the old- 
time pirate have taken hold of the imagination. 
Such characters as Capt. Kidd, Robin Hood, 
and Rob Roy, — outlaws and freebooters, — 
have gathered about them the accretions of 
generations, and well illustrate the growth of 
myth and legend. That the treasures of Kidd 
might have been buried by earthquake, or se- 
creted by human hands contiguous to the sea, is 
supposable ; but to locate them at the base of 
the Franconia Mountains, to be discovered gen- 
erations afterward, shows either the capacity 
of faith or the gullibility of the genus homo. 
Nevertheless, according to the oft-told tale, the 
spirits so declared, and the declaration was said 
to be believed and acted upon. 

But it has turned out that there was a lying 
spirit somewhere. I rather suspect it was in 
the flesh. And becoming interested in the 
origin of the Devil's Den, and being familiar 
with the history of Dungeon Rock, I sought for 
information at headquarters. Not that I would 
have it supposed that I have obeyed the oft- 
repeated injunction to "go to the devil," but 
that gentleman in black not being accessible, I 
sought one of the oldest inhabitants. He was 
not like the minister who was to speak on 



272 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

" that old serpent," the people being urged not 
to miss the sermon, because he was full of his 
subject. 

I did, however, find my old-time resident, 
Mr. Coiydon W. Cook, of Campton, full of 
intelligence and sociability. And while what 
he said about the origin of the excavation did 
not confirm the story of Capt. Kidd, and the 
direction of spirits, it did give a forcible illus- 
tration of how great oaks from little acorns 
grow, and that a lie will travel round the 
world while truth is getting its boots on. 

The fact is, the origin of the cave antedates 
Spiritualism by many years, belonging to 1830. 
It had nothing to do with the redoubtable pirate 
or his gold. My venerable interlocutor remem- 
bered its beginning, which was in his boyhood, 
and how he was impressed with the drilling, 
blasting, and explosions, the debris filling the 
bed of Beebe's River, until flood after flood 
carried it farther down the stream. In the 
romantic gorge just above the entrance, adding 
to the picturesqueness, stood until recent years 
an old mill, which has entirely faded from view 
The name " Devil's Den" is of recent date, anc 
was doubtless due to the fertile brain of a sum- 
mer boarder, who, coming from New York oi 
Boston, found it impossible to rid his imagi 



" THE DEVIL'S DEN." 273 

nation of the devil's dens that he had left 
behind him ; which suggested by contrast the 
minister's farewell remark, " Brethren, I'm now 
going to serve you a trick the devil never did, 
— I'm going to leave you." Upon hearing this 
explanation, I at once took " leave " of the 
Father of lies, and of spirits of every " shade," 
and gave heed to the story of the Devil's Den, 
from one who could say, " all of which I saw, 
and part of which I was." 

The cave passed among the rural inhabitants, 
as " The Mine Hole." About sixty-eight years 
ago there came, traveling on foot, an English- 
man, Featherton by name, who claimed to be a 
mine expert, and either by intuition, or signs 
known only to the craft, announced that valu- 
able metals, silver and gold, lay stored away in 
the rocks of Beebe's River. Whether he was 
the predecessor of Mr. Jernegan, the recent 
enterprising clergyman, who has been drawing, 
by an imaginary process, gold from sea-water, 
and far more from the pockets of a worldly-wise 
laity, who sometimes poke fun at the unsophis- 
ticated business ways of ministers, — deponent 
saith not. But the traveling Englishman con- 
vinced a number that his scheme of extracting 
wealth from rocks promised success, resulting 
in the formation of a company, and excavations 



274 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

carried on for a number of years. But the 
precious metal did not materialize. To use 
popular (s)language, they found themselves 
literally in a hole. or. as Dr. Everett would 
euphoniously say. " deposited in a cavity." 

Among those who had speculation in their 
eyes, vras a well-known lady. She invested 
heavily in the mining enterprise. It so hap- 
pened she was widely known as a believer in 
divine direction by dreams. Like the worthies 
of still earlier times, she put confidence in 
nightly visitants, and upon their impressions 
based her actions. Her dreams confirmed more 
practical minds, as to the hidden treasures, and 
upon her premonitions of success, she and 
others poured out their money. In the opinion 
of my informant, this is the kernel of truth, in 
the stoiy of a later day. that spirits had started 
the search for the treasures of Capt. Kidd. 

It is suggestive of how the mind deals with 
traditions and ancient lore. Many a bit of 
harmful gossip, too. has had nothing more sub- 
stantial to start it on its ever-widening way. 

It is of interest to know that not far from 
the present location of the Devil's Den, Na- 
thaniel Emmons became in 1771 the first 
preacher in this region, when twenty families 
constituted the whole population. It is re- 



" THE DEVIL'S DEN." 275 

corded that he set forth in a discourse of great 
power the importance of forming a " Social 
Library" in the town. He afterward became 
the celebrated Dr. Emmons, of Franklin, Mass., 
a theologian of wide influence, sending forth 
from his personal instruction over a hundred 
young men into the ministry. It is on the farm 
once owned by him that Dean Academy is now 
located. The devil in which he and his old 
parishioners believed is now a creature of the 
imagination, used playfully in our summer 
haunts. And so, as Emerson says, " The re- 
ligion of one age becomes the poetry and fic- 
tion of the next." 



276 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 



XXXV. 

THE OLD "AMBASSADOR" OFFICE IN NEW YORK. 

Being a " shut-in " just now by the prevail- 
ing decree of " King Agrippa," and not at the 
Boston Ministers' Meeting, I propose to divert 
myself, and distress the reader, by rehabilitat- 
ing the meetings of former times in the national 
metropolis. 

In the late fifties and early sixties I lived in 
Newark, and it was my habit to jot down the 
sayings at the New York Ministers' Meetings. 
I recall among the members, Sawyer, Brooks, 
Chapin, Blanchard, Moses Ballou, Peters, 
Crozier, Chambre and Lyon. 

The meetings were not organized, but free 
conversations on books, sermons, theology, 
parish work and denominational affairs, mingled 
with a social and fraternal spirit. The prob- 
lems of that time will show in some respects 
how far we have traveled, and in others how 
we tread the same old round. Pioneer work 
was done preparatory to the broader outlook of 
the present. 



THE OLD "AMBASSADOR" OFFICE. 277 

Therefore while the brethren this morning 
are using their double-twisted and double-fisted 
arguments for peace in the Philippines, I will 
present a few samples from my diary, of the 
ministers' meetings in Gotham forty years ago. 

At "The Ambassador" office this morning ex- 
temporaneous preaching was discussed. Ballou 
had not written a sermon in three years. It 
cost him twice as much labor to extemporize as 
to write, but he gained in interest and efficiency. 
He instanced Ware, a Unitarian, who wrote all 
his sermons, even to the little quirls to the 
amens at the close, but who told him (Ballou) 
that the habit of writing had made a perfect 
slave of his ministerial life. Could he live his 
days over he would extemporize altogether. 
He would lose in finish and precision, but 
would gain in popular effect. Ballou con- 
fessed that extemporaneous preaching some- 
times landed him in confusion. Others gave 
their experience. It was a sort of homiletical 
exchange. The subject of Dr. Bellows's new 
church movement was also brought up, as a 
significant enterprise of the time. It was 
noticed that a writer in " The Tribune," signing 
himself " Scrutator," was very severe on the 
Doctor. He calls him Pope Bellows, says he 
is shallow, self-conceited, and moreover began 



278 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

the organization of a universal liberal church 
by reading out of the communion that noble 
soul Theodore Parker. Some thought it un- 
just. Others thought it very good. 

At to-day's Ministers' Meeting the discussion 
between Sawyer and Westcott was talked about. 
All conceded the ability and learning of Saw- 
yer, but some thought him working in a slow 
and indolent way, characteristic of him, unless 
greatly aroused by opposition. Had he stirred 
himself as he might, he would have used West- 
cott up, and not made a mouthful of him. The 
meaning of the words aion and aionias, involved 
in the controversy, was spoken of. Westcott 
said that they meant endless duration, the root- 
words signifying as much. Were so used by 
Aristotle. Lyon thought the Doctor might 
have replied it was not the Aristotlean, but 
the Gospel meaning they were after. Illustra- 
tive of some point in the conversation an anec- 
dote was told of an Irishman who was com- 
manded to cut rails eighteen feet long. He cut 
one-half seventeen feet, the other nineteen, and 
justified himself by saying they averaged just 
right. 

The conversation among the ministers this 
morning was on the meeting of the New York 



THE OLD "AMBASSADOR" OFFICE. 279 

Association. The occasional sermon was by 
Rev. Day K. Lee, " And upon this rock I will 
build my church, and the gates of hell shall not 
prevail against it." He spoke of empires which 
had been projected by men. They have passed 
away. But Christ's reign was to be universal 
and eternal. He sketched the characteristics 
of this great spiritual kingdom, and the agents 
through which it would go forth to conquer the 
world. 

Something was said at this meeting on the 
relations of the Unitarians and Universalists. 
Crozier rejoiced in the growing evidence of 
fraternity among liberal churches. Some were 
not able to see it. The breakfast to Starr 
King upon his departure for California was 
regarded as lacking in a recognition of Univer- 
salists. King, it was claimed, never mentioned 
the Universalists, although his father was a 
Universalist minister, as King himself had 
been. Large credit was claimed for the Uni- 
tarians. Moses Ballou was a guest, and had 
been so stirred up as to write an article for 
" The Ambassador." Opinions differed. 



Monday met the brethren. Present, Ballou, 
Chapin, Brooks, Sawyer, Peters, Blanchard, 



280 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

W. B. Cook, Goodrich, C. W. Tomlinson, A. C. 
Thomas, and I. D. Williamson, the last two 
en route f or the Pennsylvania Convention. Con- 
versation dealt in part with the Kev. E. Fisher 
and his fitness for the Theological School in 
Canton. It seemed to be the opinion of those 
who ought to know that he was in every way 
capacitated. There seemed to have come from 
Boston an adverse whisper, but not from any 
who could claim to know whereof he affirmed. 

Brother Sawyer had written an article on 
Jane Lead, an English Universalist of the 
seventeenth century. This was talked about. 
She seems to have been converted to Univer- 
salism by Dr. Crisp, who published a work 
called " Christ Alone Exalted," condemned 
<; for its erroneous and abominable doctrines." 
Dr. S. had never seen the work, and was 
pleased to know that I owned it. I bought 
it from a Methodist minister whose friends 
made a stir about his speculating in Univer- 
salist literature. TThittemore in his history 
makes no mention of Crisp, and his work prob- 
ably has no clear statement of our views. He 
was an Antinomian. Sawyer said he probably 
held that Christ suffered the penalty for all, 
and that mankind ought to go free. The talk 
was continued by Brooks, on the Atonement, 



TEE OLD "AMBASSADOR" OFFICE. 281 

and passed to the Divine Sovereignty and Free 
Agency. Sawyer said he had often tried to 
corner the foreordinationists. But they would 
always slip out. Whittemore escapes by say- 
ing that " God is not the author of sin, as sin," 
which provoked the Doctor to say : " I suppose 
God is the author of sin, as is not sin." Better 
denominational organization was also discussed. 
Dr. Thompson's new book on " Endless Punish- 
ment " received attention, Chapin remarking 
that some of its positions were so infantile that 
it reminded him of Longfellow's " Katy-Did." 
" Keeps saying such a simple thing in such a 
solemn way." Chapin is speaking for prohibi- 
tion, and told the story that two men in New 
Orleans wagered five dollars that one of them 
could not bare his back and, lying on his face, 
stand the mosquitoes five minutes. There is a 
voracious mosquito there known as the gallinip- 
per. One, two, three, four minutes passed, and 
the man with the watch, seeing he would lose 
the bet, touched the bare back with the fire end 
of his cigar. " Ouch," said he, springing to his 
feet, " that's a gallinipper." Chapin said moral 
suasion was an ordinary mosquito, but touch 
the rumseller with the law — that is a galli- 
nipper. 



282 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

Monday went to New York. Ballou had 
come in from the bishop of the Episcopal 
Church, where he had gone to inquire about a 
young man desirous of entering our ministry 
from the Episcopal Church. The bishop stated 
the rank he held, but could not endorse his 
character. Had certain idiosyncrasies that led 
him into falsehood and extravagance. If it 
were not for that crotchet, continued the bishop, 
that you Universalists have got into your heads, 
that runs away with you, and I could truth- 
fully do so, I would be very glad, for our own 
sakes, to have the young man join your denom- 
ination. Ballou replied : " Ah ! that crochet 
is to us the great sun of the moral universe, 
that warms and brightens every part." He 
then said to the bishop, " I suppose you would 
not interfere in your church with any one who 
held to the distinguishing doctrine of our re- 
ligion." The bishop said he would not, but it 
was mixed up with other hurtful errors. 
Ballou said he had a mind to ask how he fancied 
the Queen, the great head of the established 
Church, appointing Charles Kingsley to an im- 
portant post, while he is an avowed Univer- 
salist. The conversation was continued on the 
" Essays and Reviews " by English Episcopa- 
lians. This book is meeting with favor among 






THE OLD "AMBASSADOR" OFFICE. 283 

the liberals, but is much opposed by conserva- 
tives. They detect hersey in it. The poor 
old Orthodox ship seems to spring aleak at 
every seam. 

Our institutions of learning received atten- 
tion at this meeting. Father Ballou's well- 
known hostility was spoken of. His remark 
was quoted, only given in the plainest possible 
English, that we might have found in Tufts 
College a mephitis Americanus that was not 
malodorous, but he did not believe it. This 
roused Blanchard, who declared that he had 
not the least filial feeling for Ballou. 

I have a memory, not recorded, of being con- 
fronted by Dr. Sawyer, at the office, when I 
was trying to look my pleasantest, and who 
said : " I maintain that no man has any busi- 
ness to go through the world looking as cross 
as you do! " I had evidently overdone the 
amiability business, and have never tried it 
since. I bore the " cross," however, with forti- 
tude and resignation. Years afterward the Uni- 
versalist Club in Boston observed the Doctor's 
ministerial jubilee ; I was one of the speakers, 
and recalled his early apostolic salutation, and 
heaped coals of fire on his head. 

But I hear no motion from this old-time 
ministers' meeting for an extension of time ; 



284 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 



and although there is more that might be resus- 
citated, a motion to adjourn is now in order, tha 
this " shut-in " may become a " shut-up " fo 
the relief of all concerned. Adjourned sine die 






LIGHT ON THE WAT. 285 



XXXVI. 

LIGHT ON THE WAY. 

There is more light in the world than ever 
before. Goethe's exclamation, " Light, more 
light still," is being fulfilled. More light of 
knowledge, philanthropy, religion; more light 
on the present and on the future. More dark 
and difficult problems have light thrown upon 
them. There is more light on the way in 
nature at this season than at any other. When 
does light so flood and freshen creation as in 
this leafy month of June ? Nature is doing a 
great business in diffusing and appropriating 
light. Light is the painter that gives variety 
and color, and changes flower and leaf into 

fairy charm. The day is long ; the dawn 
strikes the world at three o'clock in the morn- 
ing. The sun rides high in the heavens, and 
the twilight lingers far into the evening. There 
is much light on the way, in this great world 
which God has created. There is a mingled 
darkness, to be sure. There are shadows, but 
the light prevails. There is more light on the 



286 THINGS WISE AND OTHERWISE. 

way in this age, contributed by the genius and 
art of discoverer and inventor. Compare the 
" tallow dip " of our forefathers, the candles 
made in the home by our foremothers, with the 
succeeding whale oil, the illuminating gas, and 
the electric light of the present. The world is 
a brighter and safer place, because there is 
better artificial light on the way. 

There is more light on the way in religion. 
Light is the most common of metaphors. The 
Bible abounds with it. God is light. Christ is 
the light of the world. Christians are the light 
of men. Heaven is a place of light. These 
are all light-bearers to the world. They come 
to cheer and irradiate. All forms of religion, all 
creeds, all worship, have more light on their way. 

There is more light on the way of life. 
Friendship scatters its rays. The kind thought- 
fulness of others rushes in to share an extra 
burden of sickness and care. The interested 
inquiries of those whose hearts prompt to help, 
put a new value upon common human interests. 
The offer of associates to relieve the pressure 
of the occasion ; the outpour of hearts in letters, 
in telegraphic and telephonic messages, attest 
that we are not alone. The fervent " God 
bless you," and the assurance that we are not 
heart islands in trying experiences, bear wit- 



LWBT ON THE WAY. 287 

ness that we share each other's lot. The letters 
with affectionate remembrances of other days 
when trials were reversed, as if one were meet- 
ing himself on a return journey, all show how 
light accumulates on the path of life, and makes 
the way for each by turn brighter. And so a 
thousand nameless things give blessed proof 
that there are illuminators of the way of life. 
They all reflect the radiance of the central lumi- 
nary of the universe, and dignify men by making 
them satellites in the great spiritual universe. 

Truly, then, we have the light. Let us walk 
in the light that we may be the children of 
light. We may all be light-dispensers. Blessed 
are those who use the opportunity to scatter 
the rays of love ; and blessed too are those who 
in dark hours share the light of faith and 
friendship and fidelity. Let us try, then, to 
make light on the way, and hearts about will 
be bright with gratitude and love. " Don't be 
discouraged," said a gentleman to a friend who 
was having a dark hour, " this thing will look 
very different to you a little farther on." Oh, 
brethren, are there not many things that will 
throw light on the way a little farther on ? 

" Walk in the light ! and thine shall be 
A path, though thorny, bright ; 
For God, by grace, shall dwell in thee, 
And God himself is light." 






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